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Ci5jP»RIGHT DEPOSIT. 







JOHN MILTON 



AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-ONE 







MAYNARD’S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES. No. 237-238. 

LYCIDAS, COMUS, L’ ALLEGRO 
IL PENSEROSO, AND OTHER POEMS 

BY 

JOHN MILTON 

EDITED BY 

JULIAN W. ABERNETHY, Ph.H. 

A 

PRINCIPAL OF THE BERKELEY INSTITUTE, BROOKLirN, N. Y. 



NEW YORK 

MAYNAED, MERRILL, & CO. 

44-60 East Twenty-third Street 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
TwoCooles Received 

MAV 25 1906 

CLASy (O' XXc. Ne. 

IL(-C7s3\5^ 

COPY B. 




Copyright, 1906, by 
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. 


PREFACE 


‘‘ When a poet has been so much edited as Milton/’ says 
Lowell, “ the temptation of whosoever undertakes a new edition 
to see what is not to be seen becomes great in proportion as he 
finds how little there is that has not been seen before.” This 
gentle rebuke of editorial vanity has been kept in mind during 
the preparation of this edition of the Minor Poems, the purpose 
of which is merely to furnish a sensible and serviceable text- 
book, containing the material most useful to both teacher and 
student. It may not be possible for all teachers and students 
to use all of the material with the same degree of profit, but 
provision is made for what ought to be the ideal and working 
plan of all. 

No attempt has been made to supply material for the his- 
torical background, so important in the study of Milton’s life 
and works; this must be obtained from Green’s Short History 
of the English People, or Gardiner’s A Student’s History of 
England, or other standard history of the period; and this 
reading should not be neglected. 

In the preparation of the notes the aim has been to avoid, 
on the one hand, that meagerness of explanation which annoys 
rather than aids the student, and, on the other hand, that con- 
fusing surplusage of argumentative comment in which the po- 
etry is lost in the interpretation. Many references are given 
to parallel and suggestive passages in classic and contemporary 

3 


4 


PREFACE 


literature, especially to the works of Vergil, Ovid, Spenser, 
and Shakspere, authors who exercised a strong influence upon 
Milton. This feature of annotation, usually of doubtful utility, 
is valuable in the study of Milton for a particular reason. Of 
all our great poets Milton is the most learned, and. the most 
dependent upon books for inspiration. Therefore, to trace the 
evolution of his thought and poetic imagery through his read- 
ings in favorite authors is the best means for understanding his 
mind and poetic methods. 

Acknowledgments are due to many editors of Milton’s 
poems, too many even to be enumerated. The monumental work 
of David Masson must always be mentioned with a kind of 
reverential respect. ' When the personal judgment or inter- 
pretation of a previous editor has been used, credit has been 
given by name. 


CONTENTS 


INTKODUCTION ; page 

Life of Milton 7 

Chronological Summary 20 

Appreciations . 22 

Introductions to the Poems 25 

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity ... 26 

L’ Allegro and II Penseroso 28 

CoMus . .32 

Lycidas 37 

The So*nnets 41 

Suggestions for Class-room Work 43 

Bibliography 44 


MILTON’S SHORTER POEMS: 

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity .... 47 


L’ Allegro 57 

II Penseroso 62 

CoMus 69 

Lycidas 106 

An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W. 

Shakspere 113 


5 


6 


CONTENTS 


MILTON’S SHORTER FOEMS— Continued: 

Sonnets : ' page 

To THE Nightingale 114 

On His having arrived at the Age of Twenty- 

three 114 

To Mr. H. Lawes, on His Airs 115 

On the Lord General Fairfax 116 

To THE Lord General Cromwell . . . .116 

On the Late Massacre in Piedmont . . .117 

On His Blindness 117 

NOTES : 

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity . . . .119 

L’Allegro 127 

II Penseroso • . . . 139 

CoMus 149 

Lycidas 179 

Epitaph on Shakspere 192 

Sonnets . 193 


INTRODUCTION 


LIFE OF MILTON 

One who searches London for relics of our older literature 
will certainly turn off from bustling Cheapside at Bread Street, 
a lanelike street still so narrow that carts and pedestrians 
are forced jealously to share the sidewalk with each other. 
About halfway down the street the attention will be attracted 
by a tablet upon a red-brick business block containing a medal- 
lion of Milton and this inscription : “ Milton — Born in Bread 
Street — 1608 — Baptized in Church of All Hallows — which 
stood here, ante 1878.” Near by, at the sign of The Spread 
Eagle,” the poet was born, December 9, 1608. In the same 
street stood the Mermaid Tavern, where Shakspere, Ben Jon- 
son, and their fellows drank canary, matched jests, and coined 
the material of immortal plays; and as Milton was eight years 
old when Shakspere died, it is not improbable that the great 
dramatist, when passing up and down the street, may have 
often smiled into the beautiful face of the large-eyed, soft- 
haired child. At least it is pleasant to “ dally with ” this 
“ surmise,” and to recall at the same time the fact that the 
first poem of Milton to appear in print w^as the Epitaph on 
Shakspere. 

The Milton home was in the very heart of Old London. Not 
far away was Little Britain and Bow Bells, and Old St. Paul’s, 
and, beneath its shadow, St. Paul’s School, where Milton pre- 
pared for the university. St. Paul’s churchyard was then the 
center of the book trade, and even still its Paternoster Row, 
Ave Maria Lane and Amen Corner, with quaint old rookeries 
packed with booksellers’ shops, give a glimpse of the Eliza- 
bethan London which Milton knew in his school days. 

7 


8 


MILTON^S POEMS 


John Milton, the father, was a man of culture; a Puritan, 
but of the earlier type that still permitted the companionship 
of the Muses and recognized the beautiful as an attribute of the 
good. He was a lover of the fine arts, something of a poet, 
an accomplished musician, and the composer of several hymn 
tunes, two of which, York and Norwich, are yet popular. Here 
we see the source of that exquisite and marvelous sense of 
melody and harmony that dominates all of Milton’s poetry. 
From earliest childhood he was trained both in appreciation 
and in execution. His favorite instrument was the organ, the 
tones of which we hear throughout all his literary work. That 
family circle in Bread Street is a pleasing scene, as we rebuild 
it in imagination, where Puritan simplicity was united with the 
classic graces of music and poetry. 

There were three children in the family, an older sister and 
a younger brother. The father’s business, that of a scrivener, 
evidently was prosperous, as he was able to retire at the same 
time that he was sending both sons to the university. He had 
destined this older son for the church, and appears to have re- 
monstrated with him — mildly, one must think — for drifting 
away from this parental expectation. In a Latin poem. Ad 
Patrem, Milton pleads his own tastes and thanks his father 
for ‘‘ not sending him where the way lay open for piling up 
money.” His father may have been disappointed, but certainly 
he was not unsympathetic toward his son’s increasing passion 
for letters. “ It is quite plain,” says Brooke, ‘‘ that no one 
could have been more proud of a son, or more indulgent of his 
literary leisure. At the age of thirty-two Milton had not earned 
a sixpence.” 

But he had done what was better. Very early the dominat- 
ing forces of his nature were revealed. Aubrey, his first biogra- 
pher and a personal acquaintance, says that he was already 
a poet when eleven years old. The earliest specimens we have 
of his poetical experiments are two paraphrases of the Psalms, 
done in his fifteenth year. But precocious composition does 
not mark these early years so much as an intense enthusiasm 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


for knowledge. In many passages, especially of his prose 
works, with what Pattison calls ‘‘ a superb and ingenuous ego- 
tism,” Milton reveals himself autobiographically. One such 
passage describes the manner of his life at about the time he 
entered the university. “ My father destined me while yet a 
little boy for the pursuits of literature, which I seized with 
such eagerness that from the twelfth year of my age I scarcely 
ever went from my lessons to bed before midnight; which in- 
deed was the first cause of injury to my eyes, to whose natural 
weakness there were also added frequent headaches. All which 
not retarding my impetuosity in learning, he caused me to be 
daily instructed both at the grammar school and under other 
masters at home, and then when I had acquired various tongues, 
and also not some insignificant taste for the sweetness of phi- 
losophy, he sent me to Cambridge.” This acquirement in the 
‘‘ tongues ” consisted of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and some 
knowledge of Hebrew. 

He entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1625, the year of 
the accession of Charles I. There he remained seven years, 
taking the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in regular course. His 
rooms are still pointed out; when Wordsworth visited them he 
seemed to see the famous occupant: 

“ Familiarly, and in his scholar’s dress 
Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth, 

A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks 
Angelical, keen eye, courageous look. 

And conscious step of purity and pride.” 

The accounts of the charming personal appearance of the 
young Milton seem to be justified by his portraits. ‘‘ He was 
of middle height, his complexion exceedingly fair and of* deli- 
cate color, and his voice pure and delicate. Dark gray eyes, 
and auburn hair falling on his shoulders, went with an oval 
face.” His feminine refinement of appearance and manners, as 
well as “ a certain haughty delicacy ” in his tastes and morals. 


10 


MILTON^S POEMS 


won for him the nickname of tlie lady of Christ’s,” and dur- 
ing the first years of his course he is said to have been un- 
popular. 

Nevertheless he was human, like other students at seventeen, 
for we find him in a quarrel with his tutor the first year, for 
which he was sent home. But he took his punishment easily 
as well as obstinately, as shown in a letter to his friend Dio- 
dati. “ At present I care not to revisit the reedy Cam, nor does 
regret for my forbidden room^ grieve me.” He says that if 
peaceful days and lettered leisure beneath his father’s roof be 
exile, ‘‘ then I refuse neither the name nor the lot of a runa- 
way, and gladly I enjoy my state of banishment.” And he 
describes his London pleasures, chief of which is “ the pomp 
of the theater ” where ‘‘ impassioned tragedy wields high the 
bloody scepter,” by which he is affected at times “ even to bitter 
tears.” In short, he was indulging his natural inclination for 
the drama, like any other child of the Elizabethan influence. 
It was probably during this enforced vacation that he wrote 
his first original poem in English, On the Death of a Fair 
Infant, the infant being the daughter of his sister, who had 
become Mrs. Phillips. The poem is interesting mainly for its 
suggestions of beauties soon to appear in more excellent form. 

The difficulty with the tutor was adjusted and Milton re- 
turned to Cambridge to achieve finally reputation as a scholar 
and popularity as a man. Like Bacon before him, he evidently 
scorned much of the stereotyped college training, for he com- 
plains of being dragged from his studies ” for the purpose 
of “ composing some trivial declamation,” and says of the stu- 
dents that there ‘‘ are barely one or two who do not flutter off, 
all unfledged, into theology, having gotten of philology or of 
philosophy scarce so much as a smattering.” But we know that 
his own time was well spent in enriching his mind with the 
classics of all languages. One of the first impressions from 
the reading of Milton’s poetry is that of the vastness of his 
learning; nothing that was fit food for a growing poet seems 
to have escaped him. In 1 632 he left the university, regretted 


INTRODUCTION 


11 


by most of the Fellows, who held him in no ordinary esteem.” 
Among the poems written during the college period, many of 
which are in Latin, the most important are the Hymn on the 
Nativity, At a Solemn Music, On Shakspere, Song on May 
Morning, and the sonnet On Arriving at the Age of Twenty - 
three, which Brooke regards as ‘‘ one of the most solemn and 
beautiful pieces of personal writing in English poetry.” The 
little Song on May Morning, composed in the gay and happy 
style of the Elizabethan singers, is interesting as showing Mil- 
ton’s relation to the preceding age. 

Upon leaving the university the question of a career natu- 
rally pressed for decision. It was already apparent to his family 
as well as to himself that he could not enter the church, per- 
ceiving,” as he says, “ what tyranny had invaded the church, that 
he who would take orders must subscribe slave.” The spirit 
of liberty that dictated this decision was soon to inflame the 
English people to their great revolution. But there was an- 
other reason. To Diodati he wrote : What God has resolved 
toward me I know not, but this I know at least, he has instilled 
into me, if into anyone, a vehement love of the beautiful. Not 
with so much labor, as the fables have it, is Ceres said to have 
sought her daughter Proserpina, as I am wont day and night 
to seek for this idea of the beautiful, through all the forms and 
faces of things.” Here is the key to Milton’s life and charac- 
ter. It is not merely aesthetic emotion that he professes, but 
a profound passion for beauty, beauty in nature, in art, in 
thought; not the beauty of material things alone, but beauty 
transfused through the spiritual essence of things and con- 
summated in heavenly perfection. It is the spirit of the Renais- 
sance mingled with Puritan idealism. To satisfy the yearnings 
of such a soul no career was adequate except that of scholar 
and poet, and to poetry, therefore, Milton’s life was sacredly 
dedicated. 

^ Milton now went to his father’s country home at Horton, and 
there spent the next five years, or as he himself says, ‘‘ spent 
a long holiday turning over the Latin and Greek authors.” It 


12 


MILTOWS POEMS 


was, in fact, a period of studious preparation for the profession 
of poetry. Horton was an ideal place for this cloistral re- 
tirement, only seventeen miles from London, situated among 
odorous grain fields and orchards, “ trim gardens ” and the 
brightest of ‘‘ smooth-shaven greens.” Not far away flows the 
silver Thames, and a short walk brings in sight the towers of 
Windsor, “ bosomed high in tufted trees.” Here, says Milton, 
‘‘ my footsteps shall avoid the eyes of the profane. Be far off, 
watchful cares.” In this charming seclusion he wrote U Alle- 
gro, II Penseroso, Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas, all redolent of 
the idyllic conditions of his happy life. The product of five 
years was not great, in number of lines, but had he never writ- 
ten anything else, he would still be accounted one of the great 
poets. 

In 1637 Milton writes to Diodati: “ What am I thinking of? 
Why, with God’s help, of immortality! Forgive the word, I 
only whisper it in your ear! Yes, I am pluming my wings for 
a flight.” Such incidental allusions, together with notes and 
jottings, show that Milton was now contemplating some great 
work, in comparison with which the poems already written 
were but mere prelusive experiments. But the preparation for 
the great flight was not yet complete. With an indulgent 
father’s consent he set out, in 1638, for Italy, and spent a 
year beneath the skies that had known Dante and Petrarch. 
Everywhere he was received as a distinguished guest, a re- 
markable testimony to his personal worth and brilliancy of 
culture. At Florence he was invited into the Academies, or 
literary societies, and was induced to recite some of his own 
Latin poems, for which in return he received flattering ad- 
dresses in verse from his Italian admirers. Here he visited 
“ the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner (in his own house) 
to the Inquisition for thinking in astronomy otherwise than 
the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought.” Though 
warned of the imprudence of religious discussion, at Rome he 
stayed two months, “ defending the reformed religion in the 
very metropolis of popery.” At Naples he met the venerable 


INTRODUCTION 


13 


Manso, the patron and biographer of Tasso, and in acknowl- 
edgment of his courtesies addressed to him a complimentary 
Latin poem, which is notable for the hint it contains of a plan 
to write a great epic on the subject of King Arthur and his 
‘‘ Table Round.” In return Milton received a gift of two en- 
graved goblets, with a Latin epigram, signifying that he would 
be ‘‘ non Anglus sed Angelus ” if only his religious creed were 
the true one. It had been his original purpose to visit Sicily 
and Greece, but news of the increasing political troubles at 
home changed his purpose, for he ‘‘ thought it base to be trav- 
eling for pleasure abroad ” while his “ countrymen were con- 
tending for their liberty at home.” So he prepared to leave this 
fascinating land of beauty and song, but not until he had vis- 
ited Florence a second time, where he was received,” he says, 
“ with as much affection as if I had returned to my native 
country.” Florence enchanted his heart, as it enchants the 
heart of every beauty-loving traveler to-day. There he “ made 
the acquaintance of many noble and learned men,” and to one 
of these noble acquaintances he says : “ I eagerly go for a 
feast to that Dante of yours, and to Petrarca, and a good few 
more, nor has Athens itself wit^ its pellucid Ilissus, nor old 
Rome with its banks of Tiber, been able to hold me, but that 
I love to visit your Arno and these hills of Fiesole.” 

In the summer of 1639 Milton was again in London, after 
an absence of about fifteen months. ‘‘ As soon as I was able,” 
he says, “ I hired a spacious house in the city for myself and 
my books; where I again with rapture renewed my literary 
pursuits.” As to the approaching civil contest, he for the pres- 
ent “ calmly awaited the issue ” and “ trusted to the wise con- 
duct of Providence.” It was not long, however, before he 
plunged into that “ troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes ” 
in which for nearly twenty years his poetic genius was almost 
totally submerged. Meanw^hile, “ in a pretty garden-house in 
Aldersgate Street,” he engaged in the humble work of a school- 
master, undertaking at first the education of his two nephews, 
Edward and John Phillips, and finally receiving into his home 


14 


MILTON^S POEMS 


many other private pupils. That Milton had some theoretical 
interest in pedagogy is shown by his Tractate on Education, 
but this hardly lessens our surprise at finding him Avilling to 
spend precious time in exercising these boys in Latin para- 
digms. One literary duty pressed upon him at this time with 
compelling force. Upon his return to England the news of the 
death of his friend Diodati awaited him, and this event he 
memorialized in the Latin elegy Epitaphium Damonis. In this 
elegy the feeling is more tender and personal than in Lycidas ; 
for of Milton’s personal friendships the most cherished was that 
of Charles Diodati, the companion of his school days at St. 
Paul’s, and the sharer of his most intimate thoughts in maturer 
years. 

In the spring of 1643 Milton suddenly “ took a journey into 
the country,” says his nephew Phillips, ‘‘ nobody about him 
certainly knowing the reason ; or that it was any more than a 
journey of recreation; but home he returns a married man that 
went out a bachelor, his wife being Mary, the eldest daughter 
of Mr. Richard Powell.” With this event sore tribulation 
entered Milton’s life, which was to be henceforth in varying 
form his constant companion. The marriage was an extreme 
case of unsuitability of mind and purpose. At the end of a 
month the seventeen-year-old wife went to visit her parents 
and did not return for two years. Meanwhile, in hot protest 
against laws that afforded no release from such intolerable 
conditions, Milton published four pamphlets on Divorce, the 
only effect of w^hich was to bring him into scandalous notoriety 
as a dangerous heretic, and the only interest of which to-day 
is the sympathetic interest always awakened by the exposure 
of a noble heart tortured by its own indiscretions. 

The period from 1639 to 1660 is a part of Milton’s life and 
work that lovers of his poetry desire most devoutly to forget; 
for Milton the writer of scurrilous political pamphlets can 
never be reconciled with Milton the poet of divine harmonies. 
It was a period of lamentable sacrifice of his splendid powers ; 
he wrote no poetry, except the few personal sonnets ; he pub- 


INTRODUCTION 


15 


lished twenty-five prose pamphlets, four of them in Latin, 
mainly upon topics arising out of the seething political turmoil 
of the period, only one of which, the Areopagitica, a plea for 
the liberty of unlicensed printing, survives as literature. In 
1649, soon after the execution of the king, when the nation 
was contemplating the deed and its consequences in silent hor- 
ror, Milton fearlessly came forth with a defense of the regi- 
cides, entitled the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. The value 
of such a writer’s services was recognized by the leaders of the 
new government, and he received an appointment to the Latin 
secretaryship, the duties of which were nominally the transla- 
tion and dictation of correspondence with foreign governments. 
But more important duties were assigned to him ; he must use 
his great literary gifts to repel the enemies of the government 
who might venture into print. A book appeared entitled Eikon 
Basilike, the “ Royal Image,” purporting to have been written 
by the king during his imprisonment, which upon the dubious 
and susceptible public opinion was exerting a strong influ- 
ence. To this Milton prepared a reply, Eikonoklastes, the 
“ Image-breaker,” written in “ a tone of rude railing and in- 
solent swagger,” showing, says Pattison, how “ the finer sense of 
the author of U Allegro has suffered from immersion in the 
slough of religious and political faction.” The next task of 
this kind afforded Milton an opportunity to vindicate the Com- 
monwealth before all Europe. Charles II, now an exile at The 
Hague, invited Salmasius, the most famous scholar of the age, 
to write a defense of the royal cause, and this he did in the 
Defensio Regia. To this Milton replied in Latin with his De- 
fense of the English People, the chief effect of which was to 
astonish the continental scholars with the discovery that an 
obscure Englishman could convert the noble Latin tongue into 
a bludgeon of personal vituperation with a facility equal, if 
not superior, to that of their great Salmasius. They were 
mighty antagonists, these two giant classicists, but in their 
tremendous efforts to crush each other they nearly lost sight 
of the causes they were supposed to serve; and to us who re- 


16 


MILTON'S POEMS 


view the contest to-day the spectacle is as pitiable as that of 
the mad Hercules slaying the sheep. 

The struggle with Salmasius cost Milton his eyesight. The 
calamity had been threatening for some years, and he was now 
warned by his physician ; and this was his reply : ‘‘ I considered 
with myself that many had purchased less good with worse ill, 
as they who give their lives to reap only glory, and I thereupon 
concluded to employ the little remaining eyesight I was to 
enjoy in doing this, the greatest service to the common weal it 
was in my power to render.” It is a sad reflection in connec- 
tion with this high-minded resolution that in these pamphlets, 
which he continued to put forth almost up to the very hour of 
the return of the royal exiles, the great service which Milton 
thought to render to the cause of liberty was essentially ex- 
pended for naught; the principles which he advocated with 
such fierce zeal were repudiated by the people whom he had pas- 
sionately defended and his chief pamphlets were burned by the 
public hangman. In these extensive prose writings there are 
passages of great beauty and power, upon which Milton’s fame 
as a prose writer rests ; passages in which his spirit was for the 
moment lifted by some fine emotion out of the dusty avenues 
of controversy into the pure atmosphere of ideal beauty and 
truth. But the only comforting relief in all this dolorous 
period of prose is that of the sonnets written at long intervals 
during these years, which shed their gracious light like benig- 
nant stars shining through the swirling mists of a stormy 
night. 

In 1652, the year of his total blindness, Milton’s wife died, 
leaving three daughters, who grew to be a sore trial to him. 
Four years later he married Catherine Woodcock, the es- 
poused saint,” whose brief life of love, sweetness, goodness ” 
is memorialized in one of the sonnets. In 1663 he married a 
third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, who seems to have cared for 
him wisely and tenderly through his remaining years. Much 
has been written about Milton’s domestic infelicities. That he 
was not the most amiable of husbands and fathers, there is lit- 


INTRODUCTION 


17 


tie doubt. But genius, perhaps, is never successfully domes- 
ticated. The austerity of his studies, the rigidity of his morals, 
and his assumption of the inferiority of women naturally were 
not sources of sunshine in the household. He imposed severe 
tasks upon his “ undutiful ’’ daughters, requiring them to read 
to him with exact pronunciation books in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 
Italian, Spanish, and French, without teaching them or per- 
mitting them to know the meaning of anything they read; as 
they more and more rebelled, says Phillips, ‘‘ they were all sent 
out to learn some curious and ingenious sorts of manufacture 
proper for women to learn ’’ ; and they never returned. But 
that there was an amiable side to his nature is shown in the 
genial sonnet to his friend Mr. Lawrence, and in the testimony 
of the friends of his old age ; and to the essential nobility of his 
character and life all his poetry is an indubitable witness. 

The Restoration, though materially a source of ruin to Mil- 
ton, was in reality a restoration of the poet to himself. His 
property was largely swept away through confiscations and 
repudiated debts ; his life was in danger and he was obliged to 
remain in close concealment until the Act of Indemnity was 
passed ; he was blind, alone, abandoned by his own party, hated 
and despised by the party of triumph; yet in the midst of the 
wreck of his fortunes, of all that he had hoped for and labored 
for through twenty years, with Olympian calmness and resolu- 
tion he put on his singing robes once more and completed that 
great work of which he had so long dreamed, something so 
written to aftertimes as they should not willingly let it die.’’ 

In 1665, Paradise Lost was finished. As early as 1642 this 
subject had been decided upon, and the plan worked out in 
the form of a drama, but nothing more was done until 1658, 
when a beginning was made. In 1667 the great epic was pub- 
lished, and in the British Museum may be seen the contract 
with the publisher, by the terms of which Milton received £10 
for the first two editions, and his widow £8 in settlement of all 
further claims. The distinction of being the first reader of 
Paradise Lost was given to Milton’s helpful Quaker friend, 


18 


MILTOWS POEMS 


Thomas Elwood. One day the poet handed him a manuscript, 
asking him to read it and return it with his judgment. When 
I came home and had set myself to read it, I found it was that 
excellent poem which he entitled Paradise Lost” Upon return- 
ing the poem Elwood remarked : Thou hast said much here 
of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise 
Pound?’’ From this hint arose Paradise Regained, an epic 
differing widely from Paradise Lost, especially in its condensa- 
tion and chaste plainness of style. This poem was published 
in 1671, in the same volume with Samson Agonistes, the last 
work of Milton in poetry. In this austere drama in the Greek 
form Milton made the last literary revelation of the repressed 
agonies of his own great soul. Between his life and the life 
of Samson there were many correspondencies, and beneath the 
cold, sculpturesque expression of the tragedy a frequency of 
autobiographic allusion is easily discoverable. 

It is a fundamental assumption of literary criticism that 
Paradise Lost places its author among the four or five greatest 
poets of the world. In sublimity of theme and vastness of con- 
ception, and in the supreme excellence of artistic execution, he 
is approached only by Dante. But it is also a fact of literary 
history that the greatness of Paradise Lost rests upon the eru- 
dite authority of the few rather than upon the enriched and 
spontaneous experience of the many. To most readers of books 
to-day its supernal beauty is merely a tradition. The richness 
and magnificence of its learning, the majestic sweep of its 
rhythms, the extreme reaches of the imagination and vagueness 
of delineation, are qualities that detach it from ordinary human 
experience and appreciation. “ An appreciation of Milton,” 
says Pattison, “ is the last reward of consummated scholar- 
ship.” 

During the last few years of Milton’s life he wrote no poetry ; 
but if the powers of his creative genius were exhausted, there 
was still an insatiable energy for literary work. He produced 
a History of Britain, a Latin treatise on logic, a Latin gram- 
mar, a tract on True Religion, Heresy, Schism and Toleration, 


INTRODUCTION 


19 


a Brief History of Muscovy, and a Latin treatise on Christian 
Doctrine. The manuscript of this last work was discovered in 
1823, and the publication of a translation was the occasion of 
Macaulay’s famous essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review. 

Milton’s home was now in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, 
and of his daily life here we have a fairly minute account. “ He 
used to get up very early, generally at four o’clock in summer 
and five in winter. After having a chapter or two of the He- 
brew Bible read to him, he worked, first in meditation by him- 
self, and then after breakfast by dictation to his amanuensis 
for the time being, interspersed with further readings to him 
from the books he wanted to consult, till near his midday din- 
ner. A good part of the afternoon was then given to walking 
in the garden, or to playing on the organ, and singing, or hear- 
ing his wife sing.” A glimpse of his person is given in the notes 
of the painter Richardson : ‘‘ An aged clergyman of Dorsetshire 
found John Milton in a small chamber hung with rusty green, 
sitting in an elbow chair, and dressed neatly in black; pale, 
but not cadaverous; his hands and fingers gouty, and with 
chalk-stones. He used also to sit in a gray coarse cloth coat 
at the door of his house near Bunhill Fields in warm sunny 
weather, and so, as well as in his house, receive the visits of 
people of distinguished parts as well as quality.” Among these 
visitors was the popular court poet Dryden, and there were 
many more of “ the learned,” says Aubrey, “ much more than 
he did desire.” But there soon came a day when this pale- 
faced figure with the sightless eyes was seen no more at the 
doorway in Bunhill Fields. On November 8, 1674, Milton died, 
and in the chancel of St. Giles, Cripplegate, he was buried be- 
side his father; and of all the roistering poets and fine gen- 
tlemanly wits of the time, not one save Dryden knew that the 
greatest prophet of their tribe had gone out from among them 
forever. 


20 


MILTON^S POEMS 


CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 

I. Lyric Period. 1608-1639 

1608. Born in Bread Street, London, December 9. 

1608-25. At St. Paul’s School. Friendship with Charles 
Diodati. 

1624. Paraphrases of Psalms CXIV and CXXXVI. 

1625. Enters Christ College, Cambridge. Accession of Charles I. 

1626. On the Death of a Fair Infant. Elegia Prima: Ad 

Carolum Diodatum. 

1628. At a Vacation Exercise in the College. 

1629. Degree of B.A. On the Morning of Chris fs 'Nativity. 

1630. On Time. At a Solemn Music. Song on May Morning. 

On Shakspere. 

1631. Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester. Sonnet: 

On his ha/ving arrived at the Age of Twenty-three. 
Sonnet: To the Nightingale. 

1632. Degree of M.A., Cambridge. Leaves the university. 
1632-38. At Horton, Buckinghamshire. 

1632 ( ‘i)L^ Allegro. II Penseroso. 

1632 (?) Arcades; Part of an Entertainment at Harefield. 

1634. Comus. 

1635. Degree of M.A., Oxford. 

1637. Death of his mother. Lycidas. 

1638-39. Journey to Italy. Italian Sonnets. Mamsus. 

1639. Lodgings in St. Bride’s Churchyard, Fleet Street. Epi- 

taphium Damonis. 

II. Prose Period. 1640-1660. 

1640. The ‘‘garden-house” in Aldersgate Street. Long Parlia- 

ment meets. 

1641. Pamphlets: Of Reformation touching Church Discipline^ 

Reason of Church Government, etc. 


INTRODUCTION 


21 


1642. Civil War begins. Sonnet: When the Assault was in- 

tended to the City, Apology for Smectymnuus. First 
sketch for Paradise Lost. 

1643. Marries Mary Powell. First Divorce tract. 

1644. Areopagitica. On Education, Sonnets: To a Virtuous 

Young Lady and To the Lady Margaret Ley. More 
Divorce tracts. Battle of Marston Moor. 

1645. First edition of Poems. Two Sonnets : On the Detraction 

which followed upon my writing Certain Treatises. 

1646. Death of his father. Sonnet: To Mr. E. Lawes on his 

Airs. 

1648. Sonnet: On the Lord General Fairfax. 

1649. Execution of Charles I. Tenure of Kings and Magis- 

trates. Appointed Latin Secretary to Cromwell. 
EikonoMastes. 

1651. Defense of the English People. 

1652. Death of first wife. Total blindness. Sonnets: To the 

Lord General Cromwell and To Sir Henry Vane the 
Younger. 

1654. Second Defense of the English People. 

1655. Sonnets: On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, On his 

Blindness, To Mr. Later ence. To Gyriack Skinner, To 
the Same. 

1656. Marries Catherine Woodcock. 

1658. Death of second wife. Sonnet: On his Deceased Wife. 
Death of Cromwell. Composition of Paradise Lost 
begun. 

1660. Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Common- 
wealth. Restoration. Milton in hiding and in cus- 
tody. 


III. Epic Period. 1660-1674. 


1660. Home at High Holburn and Jewin Street. 

1663. Marries Elizabeth Minshull. 

1664. At Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields. 


22 


MILTON'S POEMS 


1665. At Chalfont-St.-Giles, during the Plague. Paradise Lost 

completed. 

1666. ' The Great Fire. The birthplace in Bread Street burned. 

1667. Paradise Lost published. 

1671. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes published. 

1673. Second edition of the early poems. 

1674. Paradise Lost reedited. Death, November 8. 

APPRECIATIONS. 

“ O mighty-mouth’d inventor of harmonies, 

O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity, 

God-gifted organ-voice of England, 

Milton, a name to resound for ages; 

Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 

Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armories, 

Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean 
Rings to the roar of an angel onset — 

Me rather all that bowery loneliness. 

The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring. 

And bloom profuse and cedar aches 
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean. 

Where some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o’er a rich ambrosial ocean isle. 

And crimson-hued the stately palm woods 
Whisper in odorous heights of even.” 

— Tennyson. 

‘‘Milton is undoubtedly one of the few great poets in the 
history of the world, and if he falls short of Homer, Dante, 
and Shakspere, it is chiefly because he expresses less of that 
humanity, both universal and quintessential, which they, and 
especially the last, put into verse. Narrowness is his fault. 
But the intense individuality w^hich often accompanies narrow- 
ness is his great virtue — a virtue which no poet, which no 
writer either in verse or prose, has ever had in greater measure 


INTRODUCTION 


23 


than he, and which hardly any has been able to express with 
more varied and exquisite harmony /’ — George Saintshury. 

“ In the sure and flawless perfection of his rhythm and dic- 
tion he is as admirable as Vergil or Dante, and in this respect 
he is unique among us. No one else in English literature and 
art possesses the like distinction. Thomson, Cowper, Words- 
worth, all of them good poets who have studied Milton, followed 
Milton, adopted his form, fail in their diction and rhythm if 
we try them by that high standard of excellence maintained by 
Milton constantly. From style really high and pure Milton 
never departs; their departures from it are frequent. Shak- 
spere is divinely strong, rich, and attractive. But sureness of 
perfect style Shakspere himself does not possess. . . . That 
Milton of all our English race, is by his diction and rhythm 
the one artist of the highest rank in the great style whom we 
have; this I take as requiring no discussion, this I take as 
certain. The mighty power of poetry and art is generally ad- 
mitted. But where the soul of this power, of this power at its 
best, chiefly resides, very many of us fail to see. It resides 
chiefly in the refining and elevation wrought in us by the high 
and rare excellence of the great style. We may feel the effect 
without being able to give ourselves clear account of its cause, 
but the thing is so. Now, no race needs the influences men- 
tioned, the influences of refining and elevation, more than ours ; 
and in poetry and art our grand source for them is Milton.” — 
Matthew Arnold. 

To the greatness of the artist Milton joined the majesty 
of a pure and lofty character. His poetic style was as stately 
as his character, and proceeded from it. Living at a time when 
criticism began to purify the verse of England, and being him- 
self well acquainted with the great classical models, his work 
is seldom weakened by the false conceits and the intemperance 
of the Elizabethan writers, and yet is as imaginative as theirs, 
and as various. He has not their naturalness, nor all their 


24 


MILTON^S POEMS 


intensity, but he has a larger grace, a more finished art, and a 
sublime dignity they did not possess. All the kinds of poetry 
which he touched he touched with the ease of great strength, 
and with so much weight that they became new in his hands. 
He put a new life into the masque, the sonnet, the elegy, the 
descriptive lyric, the song, the choral drama; and he created 
the epic in England. The lighter love poem he never wrote, and 
we are grateful that he kept his coarse satirical power apart 
from his poetry. In some points he was untrue to his descent 
from the Elizabethans, for he had no dramatic faculty, and he 
had no humor. He summed up in himself the learned influences 
of the English Renaissance, and handed them on to us.” — 
Stopford Brooke. 

“ It is the prerogative of this great man to stand at this 
hour foremost of all men in literary history, and so (shall we 
not say?) of all men, in the power to inspire. Virtue goes out 
of him into others. Leaving out of view the pretensions of our 
contemporaries (always an incalculable influence), we think 
no man can be named whose mind still acts on the cultivated 
interest of England and America with an energy comparable 
to that of Milton. As a poet, Shakspere undoubtedly tran- 
scends, and far surpasses him in his popularity with foreign 
nations; but Shakspere is a voice merely; who and what he 
was that sang, that sings, we know not. Milton stands erect, 
commanding, still visible as a man among men, and reads the 
laws of the moral sentiment to the newborn race. There is 
something pleasing in the affection with which we can regard 
a man who died a hundred and sixty [now two hundred and 
thirty-two] years ago in the other hemisphere, who, in respect 
to personal relations, is to us as the wind, yet by an influence 
purely spiritual makes us jealous for his fame as for that of 
a near friend. He is identified in the mind with all select and 
holy images, with the supreme interests of the human race.” — 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 


INTRODUCTION 


25 


“ Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour : 
England hath need of thee : she is a fen 
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword,. and pen. 

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower. 

Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; 

Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea : 
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free. 

So didst thou travel on life’s common way. 

In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.” 

— Wordsworth. 


INTRODUCTIONS TO THE POEMS 

The term “ minor poems ” is unhappily chosen as a general 
title for Milton’s shorter poems, for the student naturally finds 
in it an implication of inferiority to the long epic po^ms, con- 
fusing greatness with extent. The shorter poems are as perfect 
in their kind as is Paradise Lost in its kind, and it is perhaps, 
after all, a convention of criticism rather than a fact of expe- 
rience that makes an epic essentially greater as poetry than a 
lyric. Certainly if we measure poetry by the efficiency of its 
inffuence upon human culture, the shorter poems are equal, if 
not superior, to the great epics; thousands read and absorb 
into their lives the beauty, purity, and melody of Allegro, 
Comus, and Lycidas, who merely admire the solemn cadences of 
Paradise Lost in an abstract, intellectual way, as the traveler 
pauses for a moment in astonished gaze before the sublime iso- 
lation of some Alpine peak and then hastens on to hills and 
valleys that are alive with blooming ffowers. 


26 


MILTON^S POEMS 


** I do not think,” says Henry Van Dyke, ‘‘ that U Allegro y II 
Penseroso, and Comus have any lower place in the world, or 
any less enduring life, than Paradise Lost. We have thought 
so much of Milton’s strength and sublimity that we have ceased 
to recognize what is also true, that he, of all English poets, is 
by nature the supreme lover of beauty.” More and more crit- 
ical opinion is freeing itself from the overshadowing impress- 
iveness of Paradise Lost while estimating the value of the 
shorter poems. Pattison regards Lycidas as ‘‘ the high-water 
mark of English poesy and of Milton’s own production ” ; and 
Comus Saintsbury says he has “ the audacity to think his great- 
est work, if scale and merit are considered.” Such critical 
judgments as these are valuable, without necessarily being cor- 
rect. More temperate and no less suggestive is the remark of 
Augustine Birrell : “ A study of these minor poems will enable 
us half sadly to realize how much went and how much was sac- 
rificed to make the author of Paradise LostJ^ 

Milton has been called the “ last of the Elizabethans.” His 
work is a connecting link between the great age of spontaneous 
romanticism and the succeeding age of classical aspiration and 
critical refinement. His last poems are perfect in the restraint 
of classical form and finish; his early poems are all written 
in the free, light-hearted spirit of the Elizabethans, exhibiting 
always the joyous thrill of the creative impulse. 

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY 

The Christmas hymn was written while Milton was at Cam- 
bridge, in 1629, when he was just twenty-one years of age. The 
origin of the poem is described by Milton in the sixth Latin 
elegy, addressed to his friend Diodati, in a passage which Pro- 
fessor Moody thus translates : “If you will know what I am 
doing, I will tell you, if indeed you think my doings worth your 
concern. I am singing the King of Heaven, bringer of peace, 
and the fortunate days promised by the holy book; the wan- 
derings of God, and the stabling under a poor roof of Him who 


INTRODUCTION 


27 


rules with his father the realms above; the star that led the 
wizards, the hymning of angels in the air, and the gods flying 
to their endangered fanes. This poem I made as a birthday 
gift for Christ; the first light of Christmas dawn brought me 
the theme.’’ 

Of the five great “ shorter poems ” this is the least important 
in literary merit, yet there is little divergency of opinion as to 
its high excellence. There are obvious faults in the poem, due 
partly to the exuberance of a young mind flooded with classic 
lore, and partly to the bad examples of his contemporaries. 
The language is sometimes too fine, and an ingenious figure is 
sometimes too much like the “ conceits ” of Donne, Cowley, and 
others of the fantastic school. As Gosse suggests : “ We read 
the Nativity Ode with rapture, but sometimes with a smile.” 
But such slight excrescences are quickly smoothed away by the 
general impressiveness of beauty. ‘‘We should rather dwell on 
such stanzas as XIX and XXIV, in which not a word, not a 
syllable, mars the distinguished perfection of the poem, but in 
which every element combines to produce a solemn, harmonious, 
and imposing effect.” 

Hallam regarded this ode as “ perhaps the most beautiful 
in the English language,” and Landor thought stanzas IV-VII 
of the Hymn to be “ incomparably the noblest piece of lyric 
poetry in any modern language.” So even the latest critics 
praise the poem in excessive terms, but always with critical 
reservations. Thus Saintsbury says : “ It shows youth in a cer- 
tain inequality, in a slight overdose of ornament, and especially 
in a very inartistic conclusion. But nowhere even in Milton 
does the mastery of harmonies appear better than in the ex- 
quisite rhythmical arrangement of the piece, in the almost un- 
earthly beauty of the exordium, and in the famous stanzas be- 
ginning ‘ The oracles are dumb.’ It must be remembered that 
at this time English lyric was in a very rudimentary and ill- 
organized condition.” 


28 


MILTON^S POEMS 


L’ ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO 

No positive date or place can be given for the composition 
of U Allegro and II Penseroso, but Masson’s conclusion is gen- 
erally accepted, that they were written in 1632 or 1633, the 
first years of Milton’s quiet retirement at Horton. All of the 
circumstances of the poet’s life at this time are in accord with 
the character of the poems, and we can hardly conceive them 
to have been written elsewhere than in the midst of such rural 
scenes and idyllic experiences as he now enjoyed. Much critical 
energy has been expended in the attempt to force upon these 
poems a local habitation, which, it is pretty certain, their 
author never intendcnl them to have. It has, for example, 
troubled the critics sorely to find that there are no mountains 
near Horton high enough for the “ laboring clouds ” to rest 
upon, and no “ wide-watered shore ” over which the ‘‘ far-off 
curfew ” could sound, and that pollard willows are more numer- 
ous in that locality than ‘‘ hedge-row elms,” and many other 
inconsistencies that disturb the reality ” of the poems. 

Palgrave speaks of these poems as ‘‘ the earliest pure descrip- 
tive lyrics in our language.” But the term ‘‘ descriptive ” must 
be understood in a qualified sense. There was no descriptive 
poetry in the seventeenth century, in the sense in which we 
now use the term. Outward nature was only a background 
and symbolic setting for human nature. Science had not yet 
added its microscope to the poet’s tools. Milton was not de- 
scribing landscapes, but typical and idealized human emotions, 
and he idealized nature to suit the varying emotions. 

The suggestion of theme, as well as of plan of composition, 
may have come to Milton from some verses prefixed to Burton’s 
Anatomy of Melancholy, that marvelous fabric of perverted 
wisdom which had for the intellects of that age a fascination 
quite incomprehensible to readers of to-day. The verses are 
called The AuthoPs Abstract of Melancholy, in which the two 
phases of melancholy, the sweet ” and the ‘‘ sour,” are de- 


INTRODUCTION 


29 


scribed in alternate stanzas. Two stanzas will illustrate the 
possible relation to Milton’s poems; 

“ When to myself I act and smile, 

With pleasing thoughts the time beguile. 

By a brookside or wood so green. 

Unheard, unsought for, or unseen, 

A thousand pleasures do me bless, 

And crown my soul with happiness; 

All my joys besides are folly, 

None so sweet as melancholy. 

When I lie, sit, or walk alone, 

I sigh, I grieve, making great moan. 

In a dark grove or irksome den, 

With discontents and furies, then 
A thousand miseries at once 
Mine heavy heart and soul ensconce; 

All my griefs to this are jolly. 

None so sour as melancholy.” 

A closer resemblance even than this is found in a song in 
Fletcher’s play of The Nice Valor, which very likely was sug- 
gested to the dramatist by Burton’s verses: * 

“ Hence, all you vain delights. 

As short as are the nights 

Wherein you spend your folly ; 

There’s naught in this life sweet. 

If man were wise to see’t. 

But only melancholy, 

O sweetest melancholy! 

Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes, 

A sigh that piercing mortifies, 

A look that’s fasten’d to the ground, 

A tongue chain’d up without a sound. 


30 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Fountain heads, and pathless groves, 

Places which pale passion loves; 

Moonlight Avalks when all the fowls 
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls ; 

A midnight bell, a parting groan: 

These are the sounds we feed upon. 

Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley; 
Nothing’s so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.” 

The play in which this song occurs was not printed until ten 
or fifteen years after Milton’s poems were written, but it had 
been on the boards of the theater many years before, and we 
are certain that during these years Milton was familiar with 
whatever was best worth knowing at the theater. Other poets 
contributed a hint, a phrase, or a fancy, as we find throughout 
the poems — Spenser, Shakspere, Browne, Sylvester’s Du Bar- 
tas, and Marlowe; and it is worth while to trace some of these 
borrowings, in order to understand just how Milton converted 
borrowed tinsel into gold lace to decorate the garments of his 
own thought. 

The Italian titles were chosen, perhaps, because of the diffi- 
culty of finding two native words that would express precisely 
the intended antithesis. As nearly as they can be translated, 
they mean ‘‘ The Cheerful Man ” and The Thoughtful or Medi- 
tative Man ” ; not tw’o different persons or types, bvit two moods 
of the same person. Such duality is the commonest experience 
of life. The ingenious and minute manner in which Milton has 
interwoven the two poems by parallelism and contrast shows 
that he intended them to be read together as one poem in two 
parts, as it were. Each is incomplete, cannot be fully under- 
stood, without the other. It is therefore a rather fruitless 
effort of criticism that insists upon finding a more genuine au- 
tobiographic expression of feeling in one poem than in the 
other. Hales, for example, thinks that the poet is not alto- 
gether at home” in IJ Allegro, but “into his portrait of II 
Peuseroso he throws himself, so to speak, with all his soul . . . 


INTRODUCTION 


31 


the wings of his Mirth are somewhat constrained in their 
flight. But in the other poem his whole nature appears.” And 
it is noted that II Penseroso is the longer poem, and that it 
must have been written flrst (the more, therefore, con amore) 
because, forsooth, “ ‘ not unseen,’ in U Allegro, must have been 
written after the ‘ unseen ’ of /Z PenserosoP A more consistent 
supposition would be that the two poems were written at one 
and the same time. Those who draw these extreme inferences 
seem to be over-anxious to identify the spirit of II Penseroso 
with the austerity and spiritual isolation ,of Milton’s later 
years. At the time when these poems were written there was 
probably not a happier young man in all England than Milton. 
He undoubtedly agreed with Burton, whom he was just then 
reading, that ‘‘ a most incomparable delight it is so to melan- 
cholize and build castles in the air.” Moreover, he alludes in 
various places to his belief that “ the cherub contemplation ” 
should occupy a large share of a poet’s time, if he is to produce 
worthy poetry; but farther than this general devotion to the 
sacredness and high ideals of his art, there is no real evidence 
that he was more ip sympathy with II Penseroso than with 
U Allegro. 

“ The two poems,” says Dr. Garnett, “ are complementary 
rather than contrary, and may be, in a sense, regarded as one 
poem, whose theme is the praise of the reasonable life. It re- 
sembles one of those pictures in which the effect is gained by 
contrasted masses of light and shade, but each is more nicely 
mellowed and interfused with the qualities of the other than it 
lies within the resources of pictorial skill to effect. Mirth has 
an undertone of gravity, and melancholy of cheerfulness. There 
is no antagonism between the states of mind depicted ; and no 
rational lover, whether of contemplation or of recreation, would 
find any difficulty in combining the two.” 

Of the literary quality of the poems Macaulay says : In 
none of the works of Milton is his peculiar manner more hap- 
pily displayed than in the Allegro and the Penseroso. It is 
impossible to conceive that the mechanism of language can be 


32 


MILTON'S POEMS 


brought to a more exquisite degree of perfection. These poems 
differ from others as attar of roses differs from ordinary rose- 
water, the close-packed essence from the thin diluted mixture. 
They are indeed not so much poems as collections of hints, from 
each of which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. 
Every epithet is a text for a canto.” 

The metrical construction of these poems is the iambic te- 
trameter rhymed couplet, the melody being varied, with an ex- 
quisite adjustment of meter to changing thought and scene, by 
the use of an occ|isional trochee for the iambus, an imperfect 
foot at the beginning of the line, and a feminine rhyme, here 
and there. The formal introductions are constructed in the 
manner of the ode, consisting of alternate trimeters and pen- 
tameters, with an intricate rhyme scheme. This octosyllabic 
verse was much used by the later Elizabethans, and Milton 
had used it, rather crudely, in the Epitaph on the Mar- 
chioness of Winchester. He experimented very little with verse 
forms, but perfected those forms which he adopted. A com- 
parison should be made with poems in this meter by Ben Jon- 
son, Davenant, Herrick and others, to understand the full 
beauty and dignity which Milton gave to a meter which in the 
hands of ordinary poets easily deteriorates into mere jingle. 
“ Never were ideas of such dignity,” says Dr. Garnett, ‘‘ em- 
bodied in verse so easy and familiar, and with such apparent 
absence of effort.” 

COMUS 

Milton’s strong and abiding interest in the drama is evi- 
denced in all his works. In familiar correspondence during his 
undergraduate days, he speaks of his enjoyment of the thea- 
ter. His first published poem was in praise of Shakspere. In 

Allegro and 11 Penseroso he pays beautiful tributes of admira- 
tion to both the comic and the tragic stage. In Arcades and 
Comus he adopted and made peculiarly his own that form of 
drama most intimately associated with the pomp of royalty 
and the extravagant magnificence of the court, so detested by 


INTRODUCTION 


33 


the Puritan protesters. Throughout his early poems there is 
almost a continuous echo of the speech of the Elizabethan 
drama, showing his intimate familiarity with the best works 
of the dramatists, especially Shakspere. Among Milton’s 
manuscripts that have been preserved, there are four separate 
drafts of Paradise Lost, all indicating that he originally in- 
tended to treat the subject in the form of a choral drama. 
Finally, his last poem, Samson Agonistes, is a tragedy in the 
Greek form. 

All of this is merely evidence that Milton was the product 
of his age, and in no literary sense “ like a star that dwelt 
apart.” His isolation, as Birrell suggests, began with the pub- 
lication of his first Divorce pamphlet, an isolation in no way 
related to his literary environment. He was among the Puri- 
tans, but not of them; his long hair, worn undoubtedly to his 
prejudice among Roundhead associates, was a symbol, as it 
were, of his real alliance with the party of culture and literary 
tradition. His splendid acquirements in literature and music, 
and his passionate pursuit of the beautiful, made it impossible 
for him to sympathize with the hostilities of his own party 
toward the drama and other forms of art. The genesis of 
Comus, therefore, was in keeping with his culture and charac- 
ter, and it was not altogether, as Pattison asserts, ‘‘ a strange 
caprice of fortune that made the future poet of the Puritan 
epic the last composer of a Cavalier masque.” 

Like so many other Elizabethan products of the Renaissance, 
the masque was an importation from Italy. At first it was 
merely a part of the elaborate spectacles prepared for great 
public occasions, like Leicester’s pageant described in Scott’s 
Kenilworth. The characters were mainly mythologic, with 
some allegorical significance appropriate to the occasion, speak- 
ing in pompous monologue, with no dramatic relation to each 
other. Songs and dances were added, with various ‘‘ mum- 
meries,” making a composite and delightsome entertainment. 
Although maintaining a development independent of the drama 
proper, it gradually assumed dramatic form and feature, and 


34 


MILTON'S POEMS 


drew into its service some of the best writers for the stage. 
Shakspere gave it only a tolerant glance now and then, as 
in the interlude in the fourth act of the Tempest, but Ben Jon- 
son devoted some of his best talents to this species of dramatic 
pageantry and raised it to the dignity of literature. 

With the court and aristocracy the masque became an ex- 
travagant fashion; a princely wedding or royal visit was not 
complete without this gorgeous divertisement. It had the pe- 
culiar attraction of allowing the lords and fine ladies to as- 
sume the parts ; even the king was sometimes in the cast ; and 
vast sums were expended on scenery, costumes, and music. 
The Triumph of Peace, a masque given by the Inns of Court 
in 1634, the year of Gomus, cost over £20,000. A famous con- 
troversy arose between Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, the court 
architect, as to which was the more important in the produc- 
tion of these grand shows, the poet or the stage carpenter. 
Just at its culmination, Milton was induced to contribute to 
this aristocratic fad, and did so in his own superior and high- 
minded manner. Gomus, the best of the masques — the most 
poetical and most beautiful — ^was also the last composition of 
any importance in this style ; for it was near to the time when 
all such revels were ended by Puritan injunction. 

While Milton was meditating the Muse at Horton, he wrote 
the fragmentary masque Arcades, probably in 1633, to serve 
as “ part of an entertainment presented to the Countess Dow- 
ager of Derby at Harefield.” Henry Lawes, the friend of Mil- 
ton and the most distinguished composer of the period, was 
giving musical instruction in the family of the Earl of Bridge- 
water, the son-in-law of the countess; naturally, therefore, he 
was in charge of the grand musical functions given by the 
family. What the other parts of this entertainment were we 
do not know, but the excellence of Milton’s part was recognized, 
for the next year ( 1634) he was again invited to cooperate with 
Lawes in preparing a more elaborate entertainment to celebrate 
the installation of the Earl of Bridgewater as Lord President 
of Wales. For this occasion Gomus was written, and presented 


INTRODUCTION 


35 


at Ludlow Castle, the official residence of the Lord President. 
Lawes wrote the music for the songs and assumed the parts of 
the Attendant Spirit and Thyrsis. The parts of the Lady and 
the two Brothers were acted by the EarTs children, Lady Alice, 
not yet fifteen years old, and two younger brothers. These 
boys had earlier in the same year acted in Carew’s gorgeous 
masque, Goelum Britannicum, given at Whitehall, the music 
of which was furnished by Lawes. There is no evidence that 
Milton was present at Ludlow, nor that his name was associ- 
ated with the entertainment. Three years later the masque 
was published by Lawes, for a reason explained in the dedi- 
cation to the young Lord Brackley. “ Although not openly ac- 
knowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so 
lovely and so much desired that the often copying of it hath 
tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction, and 
brought me to the necessity of producing it to the public 
view.’’ The music for five songs in the masque in the com- 
poser’s own hand is still preserved in the British Museum. 
Probably the first critical praise of Gomus came to the author 
from the venerable scholar. Sir Henry Wotton, then provost 
of Eton College. “ A dainty piece of entertainment,” he writes, 
in acknowledgment of a copy of Lawes’s edition sent him by 
Milton, “ wherein I should much commend the tragical [i.e. the 
dialogue] part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain 
Doric delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto I must 
plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our lan- 
guage.” 

Editorial experts are fond of pointing out the sources from 
which Milton may have obtained the material for Gomus, some- 
times leaving his- original creative faculty in a hazardous state 
of obligation. In Ben Jonson’s masque. Pleasure Reconciled to 
Virtue, a character Gomus appears, but very unlike Milton’s 
character. A Latin play entitled Gomus by a Dutch professor, 
Hendrick van der Putten (Erycius Puteanus), was published 
at Oxford in 1634. Milton undoubtedly saw this play and 
borrowed from it some points for his own. The adventure of 


36 


MILTON^S POEMS 


the two brothers searching for a lost sister who has fallen into 
the power of an enchanter is found in George Peele’s Old 
Wives^ Tale. Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess probably fur- 
nished some hints for Comus, the main theme, the power of 
chastity, being the same in each. The Circe myth was the 
subject of Browne’s Inner Temple Masque, and some passages 
of Comus seem to indicate Milton’s familiarity with this work. 
There can be no doubt of his indebtedness especially to Fletcher 
and Peele, but the indebtedness is not in the nature of plagia- 
rism. Undoubtedly ethical obligations and standards of cour- 
tesy among authors to-day would not warrant some of Milton’s 
unacknowledged appropriations. But he did just what Shak- 
spere did, picked up the crude ore of poetry wherever he hap- 
pened to find it and made it his own by refining it into pure 
gold. He himself laid down the rule that “ borrowing, if it 
be not bettered by the borrower, is accounted plagiarie.” Cer- 
tainly he could never be convicted of plagiarism by this rule. 
“ It is wonderful,” says Lowell, ‘‘ how from the most withered 
and juiceless hint gathered in his reading his grand images 
rise like an exhalation; how from the most battered old lamp 
caught in that huge drag-net with which he swept the waters 
of learning he could conjure a tall genius to build his palaces.” 
I The varied meters of Comus had already been used by Milton, 
with one exception ; here for the first time he used blank verse, 
which for dramatic purposes had been perfected by Shak- 
spere, and was soon to be wrought by Milton into a new per- 
fection of epic grandeur. The meaning of the poem is not far 
to seek, if interpretation does not become too ingenious. Un- 
der the thin cloak of the masque Milton expresses a profound 
personal philosophy. The central theme, the power of purity, 
moral and spiritual, a power allied with Divinity, was funda- 
mental to all of Milton’s thought about ideal manhood and 
womanhood. He often reverts to the theme in his various writ- 
ings, and here develops it with the fine enthusiasm of an in- 
tense conviction. The Lady is symbolical, as the Madonna is 
symbolical, of a lofty scheme of life. To interpret into the 


INTRODUCTION 


37 


poem a satirical purpose is to mar its artistic harmony and 
completeness. Browne, for example, discovers “ an allegorical 
treatment of two themes, the license of the court and the Ro- 
manizing tendencies of the Laudian prelates.’’ Considering the 
circumstances under which the masque was written and per- 
formed, such a treatment would have been not only highly 
improper, but essentially impossible. 

j As for the beauty of the poem, “ it is impossible to single 
out passages,” says Saintsbury, “ for the whole is golden. If 
poetry could be taught by the reading of it, then indeed the 
critic’s advice to a poet might be limited to this : ‘ Give your 
days and nights to the reading of Comus.^ ” The art of the 
poem is supreme. “ It has not the pure sweetness of U Allegro 
and II Penseroso” says Moody, “ nor does it anywhere rise to 
the lyric heights of Lycidas; but over its diverse and seem- 
ingly irreconcilable elements has gone the cool hand of the 
master, to build and subdue. There is in it a severity of tone, 
a chastity of ornament, a calm artistic vision, to which most 
poets, even the greatest, attain only by long purging of their 
eyes with euphrasy and rue.” 

LYCIDAS 

Lycidas is a pastoral elegy. This lyric form originated with 
the Greek idyllists of Sicily, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, 
and was further developed in the Eclogues of Vergil. The “ La- 
ment for Daphnis ” in the first idyl of Theocritus may be re- 
garded as the prototype of Milton’s Lycidas. Pastoralism, re- 
vived from these Greek and Latin sources, became one of the 
most fascinating literary features of the Renaissance. In Italy 
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it grew in profu- 
sion, and thence its pretty fiowers were transplanted into every 
country reached by the Renaissance movement. Sidney and 
Spenser introduced it into English literature, and all of their 
successors were tempted now and then into the Arcadian fields 
by the song and laughter of piping shepherds and short-kirtled 


38 


MILTON^S POEMS 


shepherdesses. The pastoral element appeared in every form 
of imaginative literature, in the prose romance like Sidney’s 
Arcadia and Lodge’s Rosalynde, in the drama, as in As You 
Like It and Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess, in the epic as in 
the sixth book of the Faerie Queene, in love sonnets like Lodge’s 
Pastoral Sonnets in honor of Phillis, and especially in the 
pastoral songs of Marlowe, Greene, Breton, Campion, Herrick, 
Marvell, and many another, whose bright strains like the songs 
of birds in spring enlivened the whole age with the gladness of 
nature’s own rhythms. 

It was quite natural that Milton, a child of the Renaissance, 
should be attracted by this form of poetic expression. Its clas- 
sic antecedents and the artistic possibilities of conventional 
phrasings would both appeal to him. Although Lycidas is his 
only consistent pastoral, he uses the pastoral coloring in nearly 
all of his early poetry, in Allegro and 11 Penseroso, Arcades, 
Comus; there is even a touch of it in the Nativity Hymn. But 
of all poetic forms the pastoral is the most remote and arti- 
ficial, and it therefore still puzzles the unimaginative to see 
how it can be the medium of expressing genuine feeling, es- 
pecially elegiac feeling. Thus Dr. Johnson, with purblind 
confidence in his eighteenth- century sense,” balked at the 
pastoral phraseology of Lycidas and condemned the poem as 
nonsense. If, however, we had not Shelley’s Adonais and 
Arnold’s Thyrsis in clear proof of the point, a proper appre- 
ciation of Lycidas would prove the effectiveness of the pastoral 
for expressing profound feeling. 

But for this serious use of the pastoral Milton had ample 
precedent. Originally the pastoral poets piped only of the 
simple and happy bucolic life of an ideal Arcady. Theocritus 
once departed from the convention with a suggestion of the 
elegy. Moschus vitalized the suggestion in his lament for his 
master Bion. Vergil added to the subject-matter of the pas- 
toral the realities of ordinary daily life, and in the fifth and 
tenth Eclogues gave examples of the elegiac use of the form. 
Petrarch and Boccaccio discovered in the pastoral the oppor- 


INTRODUCTION 


39 


tunity for delicately veiled satire of church and state. In the 
Shepherd’s Calendar y Spenser still further humanized the con- 
ventional Corydons and Phillises, and at the death of his friend 
Sidney he wrote Astrophel: A Pastorall Elegie. What more 
natural, therefore, than that Milton should take up the pas- 
toral where it was left by Spenser, whom according to the 
testimony of Dryden he acknowledged to be his master. All 
of the elements of LycidaSy allegory, symbolism, rustic life, 
nature poetry, sorrow, pathos, satiric invective, had been abun- 
dantly exemplified in previous literature; with the instinctive 
perception of true genius he saw the possibility of a higher 
employment of these elements, and so with the deftness of su- 
perior workmanship, as well as through the force of loftier 
thought, he perfected and established the highest type of ele- 
giac poetry. 

Of the versification of Lycidas Masson says : The art of the 
verse is a study in itself. The lines are mostly the common 
iambics of five feet, but every now and then there is an ex- 
quisitely managed variation of a short line of three iambi. 
Then the interlinking and intertwining of the rhymes, some- 
times in pairs, sometimes in threes, or even fives, and at all 
varieties of intervals, from that of the contiguous couplet to 
that of an unobserved chime or stanza of some length, are 
positive perfection. Occasionally, too, there is a line that does 
not rhyme; and in every such case, though the rhyme is never 
missed by the reader’s ear, in so much music is the line bedded, 
yet a delicate artistic reason may be detected or fancied for its 
formal absence. The first line of all is one instance; we shall 
leave the reader to find out the others.” 

Palgrave remarks that Lycidas may be regarded as a test 
of any reader’s insight into the most poetical aspects of po- 
etry.” It is undoubtedly, like the Faerie Queene, a poet’s poem 
rather than a people’s poem ; but it would be a poor soul indeed 
that was not moved at some point by its varied beauty. Dr. 
Garnett thinks that Lycidas is surpassed by the other great 
English masterpiece, Adonais, in fire and grandeur.” “ But 


40 


MILTON^S POEMS 


the balance is redressed by the fact that the beauties of Ado* 
nais are of the imitable sort, and those of Lycidas of the in- 
imitable. Shelley’s eloquence is even too splendid for elegy. 
It wants the dainty thrills and tremors of subtle versification, 
and the witcheries of verbal magic in which Lycidas is so rich.” 

‘‘ In the development of the Miltonic genius,” says Pattison, 
‘‘ this wonderful dirge marks the culminating point. As the 
twin idyls of 1632 show a great advance upon the Ode on the 
'Nativity (1629), the growth of the poetic mind during the 
five years which follow 1632 is registered in Lycidas. Like 
L^ Allegro and 11 Penseroso, Lycidas is laid out on the lines of 
the accepted pastoral fiction; like them it offers exquisite 
touches of idealized rural life. But Lycidas opens up a deeper 
vein of feeling, a patriot passion so vehement and dangerous 
that, like that which stirred the Hebrew prophet, it is com- 
pelled to veil itself from power, or from sympathy, in utterance 
made purposely enigmatical. ... In Lycidas Milton’s original 
picturesque vein is for the first time crossed with one of quite 
another sort, stern, determined, obscurely indicative of sup- 
pressed passion, and the resolution to do or die. The fanaticism 
of the covenanter and the sad grace of Petrarch seem to meet 
in Milton’s monody, ^et these opposites, instead of neutraliz- 
ing each other, are blended into one harmonious whole by the 
presiding, but invisible, genius of the poet. The conflict be- 
tween the old cavalier world — the years of gayety and festivity 
of a splendid and pleasure-loving court, and the new Puritan 
world into which love and pleasure were not to enter — this 
conflict which Avas commencing in the social life of England, is 
also begun in Milton’s own breast, and is reflected in Ly- 
cidas. . . . For a moment, thejtones of both ages, the past and 
the coming, are combined, and then Milton leaves behind him 
forever the golden age and one-half of his poetic genius.” 

\ The most important personal relic of Milton now extant is 
the collection of original manuscripts, in the library of Trinity 
College, Cambridge. This precious volume is preserved h. a 
glass case, and can be removed only by order of the Master and 


INTRODUCTION 


41 


Fellows, and in the presence of one of the Fellows. In 1899 its 
contents were generously made available by photographic repro- 
duction. Among these manuscripts is the original copy of Ly- 
cidas, revealing many careful corrections and refinements of 
the text. The most interesting of these changes will be found 
in the notes. 

THE SONNETS 

Of Milton’s sonnets Dr. Johnson wrote: ‘‘They deserve not 
any particular criticism; for of the best it can only be said 
that they are not bad.” This famous judgment is historically 
valuable, as indicating the inability of the eighteenth century 
to understand the sonnet. It was not until Wordsworth that 
a successor to Shakspere and Milton appeared in this difficult 
and exquisite form of poetic composition. In his sonnet on the 
sonnet, “ Scorn not the Sonnet,” Wordsworth said of Milton : 

“ When a damp 

Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 
The Thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew 
Soul-animating strains — alas, too few! ” 

During the period in which Milton was fighting with the sword 
of Gideon in the political field, the few sonnets — seventeen in 
the period from 1642 to 1658 — represent the only consoling use 
that he made of “ that one talent which is death to hide.” 
Nearly all are personal in theme, and in expression “ stately, 
rugged, or graceful, as he pleased to make them, some like 
Hebrew psalms, others having the classic ease of Horace, some 
even tender as Milton could gravely be.” They form the con- 
necting link between the rich and radiant poetic impulses of 
his early years and the sublime loneliness of Paradise Lost, 
when each new day brought back his night. 

The sonnet may be briefiy defined as a complete poem in four- 
teen pentameter lines of verse. It requires the employment of 
an intricate rhyme scheme and the adequate expression of a 
complete thought or emotion within these circumscribed limits, 


42 


MlLTON^S POEMS 


and these requirements constitute the chief difficulties of its 
composition. The form was brought from Italy to England by 
Wyatt and Surrey. In their experimenting, especially Sur- 
rey’s, the true Italian form was much modified, and a sinipler 
form became current among the Elizabethans, consisting of 
three quite independent quatrains with alternate rhymes, and a 
rhymed couplet at the close. This type was adopted, perfected, 
and established by Shakspere. Milton restored the Petrar- 
chian model, consisting of two unequal parts or systems, the 
major system of eight lines, or octave, having two rhymes in 
a fixed arrangement, and the minor system of six lines, or sex- 
tet, having generally three rhymes variously arranged, though 
seldom with a rhymed couplet at the close. In the sonnet On 
his Blindness, for example, the rhyme scheme may thus be 
represented lahhaahh a cdecde. In To Mr. H. Laioes the 
scheme of the minor part is : cde dee, and in On the Late 
Massacre in Piedmont there are but two rhymes, arranged: 
c d cd c d. One feature of the Petrarchian sonnet, the slight 
pause in the thought and melody at the close of the octave, 
Milton did not observe, preferring to have no other break in 
the continuity of expression than that afforded by the rhyme 
scheme. 

Thus we have two well-defined types of the English sonnet, 
the Shaksperean sonnet, sometimes regarded as the native 
English type, and the Miltonic sonnet, modeled from the Italian 
sonnets of the Renaissance. Both forms have served as models 
for the modern sonneteers, the Miltonic influence more generally 
prevailing, as with Wordsworth and Mrs. Browning, leading 
ultimately, however, to the adoption of the pure Italian types, 
as by Rossetti. In another respect Milton’s sonnets mark an 
epoch in sonnet writing. Hitherto the theme of the sonnet had 
been almost exclusively love, so that throughout the Eliza- 
bethan period sugred sonettes ” came to be generally descrip- 
tive of all amatory effusions. In the hands of the inferior poets 
of the next period it degenerated rapidly toward florid insipid- 
ity. Milton raised it to a new dignity by extending its theme, 


INTRODUCTION 


43 


securing for it a free charter to the whole realm of intense 
human interest, and in this freedom, from the beginning of 
the nineteenth century, the sonnet has flourished in pleasingly 
varied beauty and power. 


SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS-ROOM WORK 

The poems should be read aloud by teacher and students, 
day by day, until the melody of the verse is thoroughly ab- 
sorbed by the student consciousness. 

Analyze the metrical form of each poem, and discover the 
poet’s reasons for the frequent variation in the fundamental 
metrical scheme. 

Make a table of the parallelisms, or corresponding passages, 
in U Allegro and II Penseroso. 

Trace the events of the day (twenty-four hours) in each 
poem. Is Milton describing an ideal or real day? Give argu- 
ments for each supposition. , 

Make lists of the pictures of natural scenes in these poems, 
such as an artist might use if he were illustrating the poems. 

Make a special study of Milton’s epithets. Justify Macau- 
lay’s statement, Every epithet is a text for a canto.” 

Find instances of Milton’s inaccuracy or inconsistency in the 
description of natural objects. 

Look for any evidences of puritanism in these poems. 

Note the different meters in Conius, and those that had been 
used in previous poems. Account for the passage of rhymed 
couplets, lines 495-510. 

Discuss the relations of Gomus to contemporary political and 
social conditions. Compare it with Lycidas in this respect. 

Give reasons for regarding Gomus as lyric rather than as 
dramatic poetry. 

Discuss the personal element in Lycidus; Milton’s feeling 
toward Edward King, his feeling toward the clergy, and his 
feeling toward his own poet’s profession. 


44 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Do the two interposed passages of personal feeling mar the 
artistic unity of Lycidas, or does Milton fully harmonize them 
with his main theme by artistic treatment? 

Note the unrhymed lines in Lycidas, and discover, if possible, 
the delicate artistic reason ’’ which Masson fancies Milton 
had in mind for each omission of the rhyme. 

Compare Milton’s sonnet structure with that of Spenser 
{Amoretti) , Shakspere, Wordsworth, and Rossetti. 

Read the rest of Milton’s sonnets, and find what justification 
there may be for Dr. Johnson’s severe judgment. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

David Masson’s Life of John Milton in Connection with the 
History of hw Time. 6 vols. The standard authority, but too 
vast and unmanageable for ordinary school work. 

David Masson’s Poetical Works of John Milton, with Mem- 
oir, Introduction, and Notes. 3 vols. Standard edition, or 
smaller edition, or Globe edition in one volume. 

John Aubrey’s Life of Milton. Available in the new edition 
(1898) of the Clarendon Press, Oxford. 

Richard Garnett’s Life of Milton. (Great Writers Series.) 

Mark Pattison’s Life of Milton. (English Men of Letters 
Series.) This and the preceding are the best biographies for 
class use. 

Stopford Brooke’s Life of Milton. (Classical Writers.) An 
excellent brief treatment. 

Masterman’s Age of Milton. 

Tudor Jenks’s In the Days of Milton. 

Mrs. Mead’s Milton^s England. 

William Vaughn Moody has edited the Cambridge Edition 
of Milton^s Complete Poetical Works, with very serviceable 
Memoir and Introduction to the poems. 

R. C. Browne’s English Poems hy John Milton. 2 vols. 
(Clarendon Press Series.) With Life, Introduction, and Notes. 


INTRODUCTION 


45 


William P. Trent’s John Milton: A Short Study of his Life 
and Works, 1899. 

Hiram Corson’s Introduction to the Works of John Milton. 
Contains copious extracts from Milton’s Prose, and Gomus, 
Lycidas and Samson Agonistes, with notes. 

Walter Kaleigh’s Milton, 1900. 

Macaulay’s Essay on Milton. Portions of this essay should 
always be studied with the poems. 

Matthew Arnold’s Milton in Essays in Criticism, Second 
Series, and A French Critic on Milton in Mixed Essays. 

'George Saintsbury’s History of Elizabethan Literature. 

Dr. Johnson’s Essay on Milton in his Lives of the Poets. 
Famous and historically interesting for its perverted critical 
judgments. 

J. R. Seeley’s Milton^s Poetry, in Roman Imperialism and 
Other Lectures and Essays. 

Lowell’s Essay on Milton. Largely a criticism of Masson. 

Emerson’s Milton, in Natural History of the Intellect. 

Augustin Birrell’s John Milton, in Obiter Dicta, Second 
Series. 

Walter Bagehot’s John Milton, in Literary Studies, vol. i. 

Edmund Gosse’s Modern English Literature. 

Landor’s Imaginary Conversations {Southey and Landor) . 

W. J. Courthope’s History of English Poetry, vol. iii. 

Barrett Wendell’s Temper of the Seventeenth Century in 
English Literature, chaps, x and xi. 

Edmund K. Chambers’s English Pastorals (Warwick Li- 
brary). For history and illustrations of English pastoral 
poetry. 

H. A. Evans’s English Masques (Warwick Library). A good 
treatment, with typical masques. 

For the masque Ward’s History of the English Drama may 
also be consulted, or J. A. Symonds’s Shakspere*s Predecessors, 
chap. ix. 

Mark Pattison’s Sonnets of John Milton. 


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POEMS 


ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY 

I 

This is the month, and this the happy morn. 

Wherein the Son of Heaven^s eternal King, 

Of wedded maid and virgin mother born. 

Our great redemption from above did bring; 

For so the holy sages once did sing, 5 

That he our deadly forfeit should release. 

And with his Father^ work us a perpetual peace. 

II 

That glorious form, that light unsufferable. 

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, 

Wherewith he wont at Heaven^s high-council table 10 
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, 

He laid aside; and, here with us to be. 

Forsook the courts of everlasting day. 

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. 

III 

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein 15 
Afford a present to the Infant God? 

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain. 

To welcome him to this his new abode, 

47 


48 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Now while the Heaven^ by the Sun^s team untrod, 
Hath took no print of the approaching light, 20 
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons 
bright ? 

IV 

See how from far upon the eastern road 
The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet ! 

0, run ; prevent them with thy humble ode. 

And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; 25 

Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet, 

And join thy voice unto the angel quire, 

From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire. 

The Hymn 


It was the winter wild. 

While the Heaven-born child 30 

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies ; 

Nature, in awe to him. 

Had doffed her gaudy trim. 

With her great Master so to sympathize; 

It was no season then for her 35 

To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour. 

II 

Only with speeches fair 
She WOOS the gentle air. 

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow. 

And on her naked shame, 40 

Pollute with sinful blame, 


ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTS NATIVITY 49 


The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; 
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes 
Should look so near upon her foul deformities. 

III 

But he, her fears to cease, 45 

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace; 

She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding 
Down through the turning sphere. 

His ready harbinger. 

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; 50 
And, waving wide her myrtle wand. 

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. 

IV 

Ko war, or battle’s sound. 

Was heard the world around; 

The idle spear and shield were high uphung; 55 
The hooked chariot stood 
Unstained with hostile blood; 

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; 

And kings sat still with awful eye. 

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. 60 

v 

But peaceful was the night 
Wherein the Prince of Light 

His reign of peace upon the earth began. 

The winds, with wonder whist. 

Smoothly the waters kissed, 65 

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, 


50 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Who now hath quite forgot to rave, 

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. 

YI 

The stars, with deep amaze. 

Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, 70 

Bending one way their precious infiuence. 

And will not take their flight. 

For all the morning light. 

Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; 

But in their glimmering orbs did glow, 75 

Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. 

VII 

And, though the shady gloom 
Had given day her room. 

The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed. 

And hid his head for shame, 80 

As his inferior flame 

The new-enlightened world no more should need; 
He saw a greater Sun appear 

Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear, 
Yin 

The shepherds on the lawn, 85 

Or ere the point of dawn. 

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; 

Full little thought they than 
That the mighty Pan 

Was kindly come to live with them below; 


90 


ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTS NATIVITY 51 


Perhaps their loveS;, or else their sheep, 

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. 

IX 

When such music sweet 
Their hearts and ears did greet 

As never was by mortal finger strook, 
Divinely-warbled voice 
Answering the stringed noise, 

As all their souls in blissful rapture 
The air, such pleasure loath to lose. 

With thousand echoes still prolongs 
close. 

X 

Nature, that heard such sound 
Beneath the hollow round 

Of Cynthia^s seat the airy region thrilling. 

Now was almost won 

To think her part was done, 105 

And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; 

She knew such harmony alone 

Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. 

XI 

At last surrounds their sight 

A globe of circular light, 110 

That with long beams the shame-faced Night arrayed ; 
The helmM Cherubim, 

The sworded Seraphim 


95 

took; 

each heavenly 
100 


52 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed^ 
Harping in loud and solemn qnire^ 115 

With nnexpressive notes, to Heaven’s new-born Heir. 

XII 

Such music (as ’tis said) 

Before was never made 
But when of old the Sons of Morning sung. 

While the Creator great 120 

His constellations set. 

And the well-balanced world on hinges hung. 

And cast the dark foundations deep. 

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. 

XIII 

Ring out, ye crystal spheres! 125 

Once bless our human ears. 

If ye have power to touch our senses so; 

And let your silver chime 
Move^in melodious time. 

And let the base of Heaven’s deep organ blow; 130 
And with your ninefold harmony 
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. 

XIV 

For, if such holy song 
Enwrap our fancy long. 

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; 135 
And speckled Vanity 
Will sicken soon and die. 

And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mold ; 


ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTS NATIVITY 53 


And Hell itself will pass away, 

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. 140 

XV 

Yea, Truth and Justice then 
Will down return to men. 

Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, 

Mercy will sit between. 

Throned in celestial sheen, 145 

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; 
And Heaven, as at some festival. 

Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. 

XVI ' 

But wisest Fate says no. 

This must not jet be so; 150 

The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy 
That on the bitter cross 
Must redeem our loss. 

So both himself and us to glorify; 

Yet first, to those ychained in sleep, 155 

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the 
deep. 

XVII 

With such a horrid clang 
As on Mount Sinai rang. 

While the red fire and smoldering clouds outbrake; 
The aged Earth, aghast, 160 

With terror of that blast. 

Shall from the surface to the center shake. 


54 


. MILTON^S POEMS 


Wlien at the world^s last session 

The dreadful J udge in middle air shall spread his throne. 

XVIII 

And then at last our bliss 165 

Full and perfect is. 

But now begins; for from this happy day 
The Old Dragon under ground, 

In straiter limits bound, 

Not half so far casts his usurpM sway, 170 

And, wroth to see his kingdom fail. 

Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail. 

XIX 

The oracles are dumb; 

No voice or hideous hum 

Kuns through the arched roof in words deceiving. 175 
Apollo from his shrine 
Can no more divine. 

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 

No nightly trance, or breathM spell, \ 

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 180 

XX 

The lonely mountains o^er. 

And the resounding shore, 

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; 

From haunted spring and dale 
Edged with poplar pale. 

The parting Genius is with sighing sent; 


185 


ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTS NATIVITY 55 


With flower-inwoven tresses torn 
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets 
mourn. 


XXI 

In consecrated earth, 

And on the holy hearth, 190 

The Lars and Lemnres moan with midnight plaint; 
In urns and altars ronnd, 

A drear and dying sound 

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; 

And the chill marble seems to sweat, 195 

While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. 

XXII 

Peor and Baalim 
Forsake their temples dim. 

With that twice-battered god of Palestine; 

And mooned Ashtaroth, 200 

Heaven^s queen and mother both. 

Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine; 

The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn; 

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz 
mourn. 


XXIII 

And sullen Moloch, fled, 205 

Hath left in shadows dread 
His burning idol all of blackest hue; 

In vain with cymbals’ ring 
They call the grizzly king. 


56 


MILTON^S POEMS 


In dismal dance about the furnace blue; 210 

The brutish gods of Nile as fast, 

Isis and Orus and the dog Anubis, haste. 

XXIV 

Nor is Osiris seen 
In Memphian grove or green. 

Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings 
loud, 215 

Nor can he be at rest 
'Within his sacred chest; 

Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; 

In vain, with timbreled anthems dark, 

, The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshiped ark. 220 

XXV 

He feels from Judahs land 
The dreaded Infant’s hand; 

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; 

Nor all the gods beside 

Longer dare abide, 225 

Not Typhon huge ending in Snaky twine; 

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true. 

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew. 

XXVI 

So, when the sun in bed. 

Curtained. with cloudy red, 230 

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave. 

The flocking shadows pale 
Troop to the infernal jail. 


UALLEGRO 


57 


Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave, 

And the yellow-skirted fays 235 

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved 
maze. 


XXVII 

But see! the Virgin blest 
Hath laid her Babe to rest. 

Time is our tedious song should here have ending; 
Heaven^s youngest-teemed star 240 

Hath fixed her polished car. 

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; 
And all about the courtly stable 
Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. 


HALLEGKO 

Hence, loathed Melancholy, 

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born 
In Stygian cave forlorn, 

^Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! 
Find out some uncouth cell, 5 

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings. 
And the night-raven sings; 

There under ebra shades and low-browed rocks. 

As ragged as thy locks, 

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 

But come, thou goddess fair and free. 

In Heaven yclept Euphrosyne, 


58 


MILTON'S POEMS 


And by men heart-easing Mirth; 

Whom lovely Venus, at a birth. 

With two sister Graces more, 

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore: 

Or whether (as some sager sing) 

The frolic wind that breathes the spring. 
Zephyr, with Aurora playing. 

As he met her once a-Maying, 

There on beds of violets blue. 

And fresh-blown roses washed in dew. 
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, 

So buxom, blithe, and debonair. 

' sc 

' Haste thee,, nymph, and bring with thee ' 
Jest and youthful jollity, 

Qufps and cr^ks and wanton wiles, 
s Nods and be^ks and wreathed smiles. 
Such as hang on Hebe^ cheek. 

And love to live in dimple sleek; 

Sport that wrinkled Care derides. 

And Laughter holding both his sides. 

Come, and trip it as you go. 

On the light fantastic toe; 

And in thy right hand lead with thee 
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; 

And if I give thee honor due. 

Mirth, admit me of thy crew. 

To live with her, and live with thee 
X In unreproved pleasures free; 

To hear the lark begin his flight. 

And, singing, startle the dull night. 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 


UALLEGRO 


59 


From his watcj^-tower in the skies, 

Till the dappled dawn doth rise; 

Then to come, in spite of sorrow, 45 

And at my window hid good morrow. 

Through the sweetbrier or the vine. 

Or the twisted eglantine; 

While the cock, with lively din. 

Scatters the rear of darkness thin, 50 

And to the stack, or the barn door. 

Stoutly struts his dames before: 

Oft listening how the homds and horn 
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn. 

From the side of some hour hill. 

Through the high wood echoing shrill: 

Sometime walking, not unseen. 

By hedgerow elms, on hillocks green. 

Eight against the eastern gate 
Where the great sun begins his state, 60 

Kobed in flames and amber light. 

The clouds in thousand liveries dight; 

While the plowman, near at hand. 

Whistles o^er the' furrowed land. 

And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 65 

And the mower whets his scythe,^ 

And every shepherd tells his tale 
Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, 

A^Tiilst the landskip round it measures: 70 

Russet lawns and fallows gray. 

Where the nibbling flocks do stray; 



60 


MILTON* S' POEMS 


Mountains on whose barren breast 
The laboring clouds do often rest; 
Meadows trim with daisies pied. 

Shallow brooks and rivers wide; 

Towers and battlements it sees 
Bosomed high in tufted trees, 

Where perhaps some beauty lies. 

The Cynosure of neighboring eyes. 

Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes 
From betwixt two aged oaks, 

"Where Cory don and Thyrsis met 
Are at their savory dinner set ^ 

Of herbs and other country messes. 
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; 
And then in haste her bower she leaves. 
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; 

Or, if the earlier season lead. 

To the tanned haycock in the mead. 
Sometimes with secure delight 
The upland hamlets will invite. 

When the merry bells ring round. 

And the jocund rebecks sound 
To many a youth and many a maid, 
Dancing in the chequered shade; 

And young and old come forth to play 
On a sunshine holiday. 

Till the livelong daylight fail: 

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, 

WTth stories told of many a feat. 

How Faery Mab the junkets eat: 


75 

80 

85 

90 

95 

lOO 


UALLEGRO 


61 


She was pinched and pulled^ she said; 

And he, by Friar’s lantern led. 

Tells how the drndging goblin sweat 
To earn his cream-bowl duly set. 

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn. 
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn 
That ten day-laborers could not end; 

Then lies him down, the lubber fiend. 

And, stretched out all the chimney’s length. 
Basks at the fire his hairy strength; 

And crop-full out of doors he flings. 

Ere the first cock his matin rings. 

Thus dope the tales, to bed they creep, ft / 
By Whispering wind^ soon lulled asleep. - ^ 

Towered^ cities please us then, . 

And the busy hum of men. 

Where throngs of knights and barons bold. 
In weeds of peace'; high triumphs hold. 

With store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
Kain influence, and judge the prize 
Of wit or arms, while both contend 
To win her grace whom all commend. 

There let Hymen oft appear 
In saffron robe, with taper clear. 

And pomp, and feast, and revelry. 

With mask, and antique pageantry; 

Such sights as youthful poets dream 
On summer eves by haunted stream. 

Then to the well-trod stage anon. 

If J onson’s learned sock be on. 


105 

110 

115 

120 

125 

130 


62 


MILTOWS POEMS 


Or sweetest Shakspere, Fancy’s child, 
Warble his native wood-notes wild. 

And ever, against eating cares. 

Lap me in soft Lydian airs. 

Married to immortal verse. 

Such as the meeting soul may pierce. 

In notes with many a winding bout 
Of linkM sweetness long drawn out 
With wanton heed and giddy cunning. 

The melting voice through mazes running. 
Untwisting all the chains that tie 
The hidden soul of harmony; 

That Orpheus’ self may heave his head 
From golden slumber on a bed 
Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear 
Such strains as would have won the ear 
Of Pluto to have quite set free 
His half -regained Eurydice. 

These delights if thou canst give. 

Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 


IL PE'NSEKOSO 

Hence, vain deluding Joys, 

The brood of Folly without father bred! 
How little you bestead,^ 

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys! 
Dwell in some idle brain. 

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess. 


135 

140 

145 

150 


5 


IL PENSEROSO 


63 


As thick and numberless 

As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, 

Or likest hovering dreams, 

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus^ train, 10 

But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy. 

Hail, divinest Melancholy! 

Whose saintly visage is too bright 
To hit the sense of human sight. 

And therefore to our weaker view 15 

Overlaid with black, staid Wisdom^s hue; 

Black, but such as in esteem 
Prince Memnon^s sister might beseem. 

Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove 

To set her beauty’s praise above 20 

The sea-nymphs’, and their powers offended. 

Yet thou art higher far descended: 

Thee bright-hair’d Vesta long of yore 
To solitary Saturn bore; 

His daughter she; in Saturn’s reign, 25 

Such mixture was not held a stain. 

Oft in glimmering bowers and glades 
He met her, and in secret shades 
Of woody Ida’s inmost grove. 

Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. 30 

Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure. 

Sober, steadfast, and demure. 

All in a robe of darkest grain. 

Flowing with majestic train. 

And sable stole of cypress lawn. 

Over thy decent shoulders drawn. 


35 


64 


MlLTON^S POEMS 


Come^ but keep tb^ wonted state, 

With even step, and musing gait. 

And looks comm^cing with the skies. 

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: 

There, held in holy passion still. 

Forget thyself to marble, till 
With a sad leaden downward cast 
Thou fix them on the earth as fast. 

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, 
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet. 
And hears the Muses in a ring 
Aye round about Jove’s altar sing; 

( And add to these retired Leisure, ’\ 
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;) 

' But, first and chiefest, with thee bring 
Him that yon soars on golden wing. 
Guiding the fiery- wheeled throne. 

The Cherub Contemplation; 

And the mute Silence hist along, 

’Less Philomel will deign a song. 

In her sweetest, saddest plight. 

Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, 
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke 
Gently o’er the accustomed oak. 

Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly. 
Most musical, most melancholy! 

Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among 
I woo, to hear thy even-song; 

And, missing thee, I walk unseen 
On the dry smooth-shaven green. 


40 

45 

50 

55 

60 

65 


IL PENSEROSO 


65 


To behold the wandering moon. 

Riding near her highest noon, 

Like one that had been led astray 

Through the heaven’s wide pathless way, 70 

And oft, as if her head she bowed. 

Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 

Oft, on a piat of rising ground, 

I hear the far-off curfew sound. 

Over some wide-watered shore, 75 

Swinging slow with sullen roar; 

Or, if the air will not permit, 

Some still removed place will fit, 

Where glowing embers through the room 
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, 80 

•Far from all resort of mirth. 

Save the cricket on the hearth. 

Or the bellman’s drowsy charm 
To bless the doors from nightly harm. 

Or let my lamp at midnight hour 85 

Be seen in some high lonely tower^ ’ 

Where I may oft out watch the Bear, ^ * 

With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere 
The spirit of Plato, to unfold 

What worlds or what vast regions hold 90 

The immortal mind, that hath forsook 
Her mansion in this fleshly nook; 

And of those demons that are found 
In fire, air, flood, or under ground, 

Wh’ose power hath a true consent 95 

W^ith planet or with element. 


66 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy 
In.sceptered pall come sweeping by, 
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops’ line. 
Or the tale of Troy divine. 


Or what (though rar^ of Inter age>^^ l 
E nnobled hath the Imst^e^ stage.^ ^ 


100 


But, 0 s_^ Virgin! that thy power 
Might raise Musseus from his bower; 
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing 
Such notes as, warbled to the string, 
Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek. 


105 


And made Hell grant what love did seek; r, \ ’ v r , 

11 1-: xi__j. i„-ex 1, „ii? x^iJ 




Or call up him that left half -told 
The story of Cambuscan bold. 

Of Camball and of Algarsife, 

And who ha;d Canace to wife. 

That owned the virtuous ring and glass. 

And of the. wondrous horse of brass 
On which the Tartar king did ride; 

And if aught else great bards beside 
In sage and solemn tunes have sung. 

Of tourneys, and of trophies hung. 

Of forests and enchantments drear, , 

Where more is meant than meets the ear."^ 
Thus, Hight, oft see me in thy pale career, \ 
Till ciy}f;:S]gLi±^^ appear, \ 

Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont 
With the Attic boy to hunt. 

But kerchieft in a comely cloud. 

While rocking winds are piping loud. 


110 


115 


120 


125 


IL PENSEROSO 


Or ushered with a shower still, 

WTien the gust hath blown his fill, 

Ending on the rustling leaves, 

With minube-drops from off the eaves. i 
And, when the sun begins to fling 
His flaring beams, me. Goddess, bring 
To arched walks of twilight groves, ^ , ■ 
And shadows br^wn, that Sylvan loves. 

Of pine, or monumental oak. 

Where the rude ax with heaved stroke 
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt. 

Or fright them from their hallowed haunt. 
There, in close covert, by some brook, ^ 
Where no profaner eye niay look, ^ * 

Hide me from day ^s "garish |ye, . , ^ 5 
While the bee with honey*^ thigh, ^ 
That at her flowery work doth sing, 

And the waters murmuring. 

With such consort as they keep, ^ • 

Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep ; ^ 

And let some strange mysterious Dream 
Wave at Kis wings, in airy stream 
Of lively portraiture displayed. 

Softly on my eyelids laid; 

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe 
Above, about, or underneath. 

Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, 

Or the unseen (5^1^ of '’the wood. " 

But let my^"^£t^et ilever fail ’ 

To walk the studious cloi^eEs pale. 


68 


MILTON’S POEMS ^ 
■ .Ovt- 




■'i 


And love the high embowed roof, 

With antique pillars massy-proof, , 

And staled windows richly dight,^^9^>vA^^^ ' 
Casting a dim religious light. ^ a 

There let the pealing organ hlow,^/ 

To the full-voiced quire below. 

In service high, and anthems clear, 

As may with sweetness, through mine ear. 
Dissolve me into ecstasies, \y 
And bring all heaven before mine eyes. 

And may at last my weary age 
.Find out the peaceful hermitage, / 

^"^^^^The hairy gown and mossy cell, 

Where I may sit and rightly spell/ 

^ .Of every star that heaven doth shew. 

And every herb that sips the dew. 

Till old experience do attain 
To something like prophetic strain. 

These pleasures. Melancholy, give,' • 

And I with thee will choose to live. 




^160 


165 


170 


175 





LUDLOW CASTLE 

The window at the extreme left is that of the hall in which Comus was performed 




COM US 


69 


n 


io 


0 5 -^' 


COMUS 


THE PERSONS 




) 1 > 


The Attendant Spirit, afterwards in the habit of Thyesis. 
CoMUS, with his Crew. 

The Lady. 

First Brother. 

Second Brother. 

Sabrina, the Nymph. 

The Chief Persons which presented were: 

The Lord Brackley; 

Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother; 

The Lady Alice Egerton. 

- ♦ 

COMUS 

The first Scene discovers a wild wood 

The Attendant Spirit descends or enters 

Before the starry' threshold of Jove^s court 
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes 
Of bright aerial spirits live insphered 
In regions mild of calm and serene air, 

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot 5 

Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care. 
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here. 

Strive to keep np a frail and feverish being. 

Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives. 

After this mortal change, to her true servants 10 


70 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats. 

Yet some there be that by due steps aspire 
To lay their just hands on that golden key 
That opes the palace of eternity. 

To such my errand is; and, but for such, 

I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds 
With the rank vapors of this sin-worn mold. 

But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway 
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream. 

Took in, by lot Twixt high and nether Jove, 
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles 
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay 
The unadorned bosom of the deep; 

Which he, to grace his tributary gods. 

By course commits to several government. 

And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns 
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle, 

The greatest and the best of all the main. 

He quarters to his blue-haired deities; 

And all this tract that fronts the falling sun 
A noble Peer of mickle trust and power 
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide 
An old and haughty nation, proud in arms: 

Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore, 
Are coming to attend their father’s state. 

And new-intrusted scepter. But their way 
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood. 
The nodding horror of whose shady brows 
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger; 

And here their tender age might suffer peril. 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 


COM US 


71 


But that, by quick command from sovran Jove, 

I was dispatched for their defense and guard ! 

And listen why; for I will tell you now 
What never yet was heard in tale or song. 

From old or modern bard, in hall or bower. 45 

Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape 
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine. 

After the Tuscan mariners transformed, \ 

Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed. 

On Circe’s island fell. (Who knows not Circe, ; 50 
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup | 
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape 
And downward fell into a groveling swine?) 

This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks 
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth, 55 
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son 
Much like his father, but his mother more. 

Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named: 
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age. 

Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields, 60 

At last betakes him to this ominous wood. 

And, in thick shelter of black shades embowered, 

Excels his mother at her mighty art; 

Offering to every weary traveler 

His orient liquor in a crystal glass, 65 

To quench the drought of Phoebus ; which as they taste 
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst). 
Soon as the potion works, their human countenance. 
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed 
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, 70 


/ 

ijr2 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat. 

All other parts remaining as they were. 

And they, so perfect is their misery. 

Not once perceive their foul disfigurement. 

But boast themselves more comely than before, 75 

And^all their friends and native home forget^ 

To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' 

Therefore, when any favored of high J ove 
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade. 

Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star 80 

I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy. 

As now I do. But first I must put off 
These my sky-robes spun out of Iris’ woof. 

And take the weeds and likeness of a swain 

That to the service of this house belongs, 85 

Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song. 

Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar. 

And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith. 

And in this office of his mountain watch 
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid 90 

Of this occasion. But I hear the tread 
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now. 

CoMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the 
other; with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry 
sorts of wild beasts, but otherunse like men and women, 
their apparel glistering. They come in making a riotous 
and unruly noise, with torches in their hands 

Comus. The star that bids the shepherd fold 
Now the top of heaven doth hold; 


COM US 


73 


And the gilded car of day 
His glowing axle doth allay 
In the steep Atlantic stream: 

And the slope snn his upward beam 
Shoots against the dusky pole, 

Pacing toward the other goal 
Of his chamber in the east. 

Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast. 

Midnight shout and revelry. 

Tipsy dance and jollity. 

Braid your locks with rosy twine. 

Dropping odors, dropping wine. 

Eigor now is gone to bed ; 

And Advice with scrupulous head. 

Strict Age, and sour Severity, 

With their grave saws, in slumber lie. 

We, that are of purer fire. 

Imitate the starry quire. 

Who, in their nightly watchful spheres. 

Lead in swift round the months and years. 

The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove, 
How to the moon in wavering morrice move; 
And on the tawny sands and shelves 
Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves. 

By dimpled brook and fountain-brim. 

The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim. 
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep: 

What hath night to do with sleep? 

Hight hath better sweets to prove; 

Venus now wakes, and wakens Love. 


95 

100 

105 

110 

115 

120 


74 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Come, let us our rites begin; • - 

^Tis only -daylight that makes sin, - 
Which these dun shades will ne’er report. 

Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport, 

Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame 
Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame. 

That ne’er art called but when the dragon womb 
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom, 

And makes one blot of all the air! 

Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, 

Wherein thou rid’st with Hecat’, and befriend 
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end 
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out 
Ere the blabbing eastern scout. 

The nice Morn on the Indian steep. 

From her cabined loophole peep, 

And to the telltale Sun descry 
Our concealed solemnity. 

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground 
In a light fantastic round. 

The Measure 

Break off, break off! I feel the different pace 
Of some chaste footing near about this ground. 
Kun to your shrouds within these brakes and trees ; 
Our number may affright. Some virgin sure 
(For so I can distinguish by mine art) 

Benighted in these woods ! N’ow to my charms. 
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long 


125 

130 

135 

140 

145 

150 


( 


COM US 


75 


Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed 
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl ^ ^ 

My dazzlmg spells into the spongy air. 

Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion, 155 

And give it false presentments, lest the place 
And my quaint habits breed astonishment. 

And put the damsel to suspicious flight; 

Which must not he, for thaCs against my course. 

I, under fair pretense of friendly ends, . 160 

And well-placed words of glozing courtesy. 

Baited with reasons not unplausible. 

Wind me into the easy-hearted man, 

And hug him into snares. When once her eye 
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust 165 

I shall appear some harmless villager. 

Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear. 

But here she comes; I fairly step aside. 

And hearken, if I may her business hear. 

The Lady enters 

Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, 
My best guide now. Methought it was the sound 171 
Of riot and ill-managed merriment. 

Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe 
Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds. 

When, for their teeming flocks and granges full, 175 
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, 

And thank the gods amiss. I should be loath 
To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence 
Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else 


76 


MILTOWS POEMS 


Shall I inform my unacquainted feet 180 

In the blind mazes of this tangled wood? 

My brothers, when they saw me wearied out 
With this long way, resolving here to lodge 
Under the spreading favor of these pines. 

Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side 185 
To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit 
As the kind hospitable woods provide. 

They left me then when the gray-hooded Even, 

Like a sad votarist in palmer^s weed, 

Eose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus’ wain. 190 
But where they are, and why they come not back. 

Is now the labor of my thoughts. ’Tis likeliest 
They had engaged their wandering steps too far; 

And envious darkness, ere they could return. 

Had stole them from me. Else, 0 thievish Mght, 195 
Why should’st thou, but for some felonious end. 

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars 

That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps 

With everlasting oil, to give due light 

To the misled and lonely traveler? 200 

This is the place, as well as I may guess. 

Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth 
Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear; 

Yet nought but single darkness do I find. 

What might this be? JA thousand fantasies 205 

Begin to throng into liiy memory. 

Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, ^ 

And airy tongues that syllable men’s names 
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. 


COMUS 


77 


These thoughts may startle well, but not astound 210 
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended 
By a strong siding champion. Conscience. 

0, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, 
Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings. 

And thou unblemished form of Chastity! “ 215 

I see ye visibly, and now believe 
That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill 
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance. 

Would send a glistering guardian, if need were. 

To keep my life and honor unassailed. — 220 

Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud 

Turn forth her silver lining on the night? / 

I did not err: there does a sable cloud ' 

Turn forth her silver lining on the night. 

And casts a gleam over this tufted grove. 225 

I cannot halloo to my brothers, but 
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest 
ril venture; for my new-enlivened spirits 
Prompt me, and they perhaps are not far o^ 



Song 


Sweet echo, sweetest nymph, that liv^st unseen 230 
Within thy airy shell 
By slow Meander’s margent green. 

And in the violet-embroidered vale 
Where the lovelorn nightingale 
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: 235 

Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair 


78 


MILTON'S POEMS 


That likest thy Narcissus are? 

0, if thou have 

Hid them in some flowery cave. 

Tell me but where, 240 

Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere ! 

So may^st thou be translated to the skies. 

And give resounding grace to all Heaven^s harmonies! 

Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth’s mold 
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment? 245 

Sure something holy lodges in that breast, 

And with these raptures moves the vocal air 
To testify his hidden residence. 

How sweetly did they float upon the wings 
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, 250 

At every fall smoothing the raven down 
Of darkness till it smiled ! I have oft heard 
My mother Circe with the Sirens three. 

Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, ^ 

Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs, 255 

Who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul. 

And lap it in Elysium: Scylla wept, 

And chid her barking waves into attention. 

And fell Charybdis murmured soft applau^. 

Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense, 260 
And in sweet madness robbed it of itself; 

But such a sacred and home-felt delight. 

Such sober certainty of waking bliss, 

I never heard till now. I’ll speak to her. 

And she shall be my queen. — Hail, foreign wonder! 265 


COM US 


79 


Whom certain these rough shades did never breed, 

Unless the goddess that in rural shrine 

DwelFst here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song 

Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog 

To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. 270 

Lady. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise 
That is addressed to unattending ears. 

Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift 
How to regain my severed company. 

Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo' 275 

To give me answer from her mossy couch. 

Comus. What chance^ good Lady, hath bereft you 
thus? 

Lady. Dim darkness and this leavy labyrinth. 

Comus. Could that divide you from near-ushering 
guides? 

Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf. 280 

Comus. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why? 

Lady. To' seek F the valley some cool friendly 
spring. 

Comus. And left your fair side all unguarded. 
Lady? 

Lady. They were hut twain, and purposed quick 
return. 284 

Comus. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. 

Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit! 

Comus. Imports their loss, beside the present need? 

Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. 

Comus. Were they of manly prime, or youthful 
bloom? 


80 


MILTON'S POEMS 

Lady. As smooth as Hebe^s their unrazored lips. 
Comus. Two such I saw, what time the labored 
ox ' 291 

In his loose traces from the furrow came, 

— - And the swinked hedger at his supper sat. 

I saw them under a green mantling vine. 

That crawls along the side of yon small hill, 295 
Plucking ripe clusters from the tender shoots; 

Their port was more than human, as they stood. 

I took it for a faery vision 

Of some gay creatures of the element. 

That in the colors of the rainbow live, • 300 

And play f the plighted clouds. I was awe-strook. 

And, as I passed, I worshiped. If those you seek. 

It were a journey like the path to Heaven 
To help you find them. 

Lady. Gentle villager. 

What readiest way would bring me to that place? 305 
Comus. Due west it rises from this shrubby point. 
Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose. 

In such a scant allowance of starlight. 

Would overtask the best land-piloPs art. 

Without the sure guess of well-practised feet. 310 
Comus. I know each lane, and every alley green, 
Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood. 

And every bosky bourn from side to side. 

My daily walks and ancient neighborhood; 

And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged. 

Or shroud within these limits, I shall know 
' Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark 


315 


COM US 


81 


From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise, 

I can conduct you, Lady, to a low 

But loyal cottage, where you may he 320 

Till further quest. 

Lady, -- Shepherd, I take thy word. 

And trust thy honest-off ered courtesy. 

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds. 

With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls 
And courts of princes, where it first was named, 325 
And yet is most pretended. In a place 
Less warranted than this, or less secure, 

I cannot be, that I should fear to change it. 

Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial 

To my proportioned strength! Shepherd, lead on. 330 

The Two Brothers 

fair 


335 


340 


Eld. Bro. Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, 
moon. 

That wonPst to love the travelers benison. 

Stoop thy pale visage through ap amber cloud. 
And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here 
In double night of darkness and of shades; 

Or, if your influence be quite dammed up 
With black usurping mists, some gentle taper, 
Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole 
Of some clay habitation, visit us 
With thy long leveled rule of streaming light. 

And thou shalt be our star of Arcady, 

Or Tyrian Cynosure, y 


82 


MILTON'S 

Sec. Bro. Or, if our eyes 

Be barred that happiness, might we but hear 
The folded flopVy^ penned in their wattled cotes. 

Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, 345 

Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock 
Count the night-watches to his feathery dames, 

^Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering. 

In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. 

But^ohj, that hapless virgin, our lost lister! 350 

Where may she wander now, whither betake her 
From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles? 
Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now. 

Or Against the rugged bark of some broad elm 

Leans her unpillowed hea'd, fraught with sad fears. 355 

What if in wild amazement and affright^ 

Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp 
Of savage hunger, or of savage heat ! 

Eld. Bro. Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite , 

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils; 360 

For, grant they be so, while they rest unknown. 

What need a man forestall his date of grief. 

And run to meet what he would most avoid? 

Or, if they be but false alarms of fear. 

How bitter is such self-delusion! 365 

I do not think my sister so to seek. 

Or so unprincipled in virtue^s book. 

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever. 

As that the single want of light and noise 

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not) 370 

Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts. 


COMUS 


. t . 


83 


And put them into misbecoming plight. 

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would 
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon 
Were in the flat sea sunk.Ij And Wisdom’s self 375 
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, 

Where, with her best nurse Contemplation, 

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings. 
That, in the various bustle of resort, 

AY^e all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. "§80 
^^e that l;ias light within his own clear breast 
May sit i’ the center, and enjoy bright day: 

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts^ 
Benighted walks under^the mjdday sun; . 

Himself is his own dungeon^‘ 

Sec. Bro. ^ ^ ’Tis most true 385 

That musing Meditation most af ects 
^ The pensive secrecy of desert cell. 

Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds. 

And sits as safe as in a senate-house ; 

For who would rob a hermit of his weeds, 390 

His few books, or his beads, or maple dish. 

Or do his gray hairs any violence? 

But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree 
Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard 
Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye 395 

To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit. 

From the rash hand of bold Incontinence. 

You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps 
Of miser’s treasure by an outlaw’s den. 

And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope 400 


84 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Danger will wink on Opportunity, 

And let a single helpless maiden pass 
Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste. 

Of night or loneliness it recks me not; 

I fear the dread events that dog them both, 405 

Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person 
Of our unowned sister. 

Eld. Bro. I do not, brother. 

Infer as if I thought my sisteUs state 
Secure without all doubt or controversy; 

Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear 410 

Does arbitrate the event, my nature is 
That I incline to hope rather than fear. 

And gladly banish squint suspicion. 

My sister is not so defenseless left 

As you imagine; she has a hidden strength, 415 

Which you remember not. 

Sec. Bro. What hidden strength. 

Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that? 

^Eld. Bro. I mean that too, but yet a hidden 
strength, 

Which, if Heaven gave it, muy be termed her own. 

^Tis chastity, my brother, chastity: 420 

She that has that is clad in complete steel. 

And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen. 

May trace huge forests, and unharbored heaths. 
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds; 

Where, through the sacred rays of chastity, 425 

No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer. 

Will dare to soil her virgin purity. 


COM US 


85 


Yea, there where very desolation dwells. 

By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades. 

She may pass on with unblenched majesty, 430 

Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. 

Some say no evil thing that walks by night. 

In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen. 

Blue meager hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost. 

That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, ^435 

No goblin or swart faery of the mine. 

Hath hurtful power o^er true virginity. 

Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call 

Antiquity from the old schools 'of Greece 

To testify the arms of chastity? 440 

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow. 

Fair silver-shafted queen forever chaste. 

Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness 

And spotted mountain-pard, but set at nought 

The frivolous bolt of Cupid; gods and men 445 

Feared her stern frown, and she was queen o’ the woods. 

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield 

That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin, 

Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone. 
But rigid looks of chaste austerity, ' 450 

And noble grace that dashed brute violence 
With sudden adoration and blank awe? 

So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity 
That, when a soul is found sincerely so, 

A. thousand liveried angels lackey her, 455 

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt. 

And in clear dream and solemn vision 


86 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear; 

Till oft converse with heavenly habitants 

Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape^ 460 

The unpolluted temple of the mind, 

And turns it by degrees to the soul’s essence. 

Till all be made immortal. But, when lust. 

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk. 

But most by lewd and lavish act of sin, 465 

Lets in defilement to the inward parts. 

The soul grows clotted by contagion, 

Imbodies, and imbrutes^ till she quite lose 
The divine property of her first being. 

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp 470 
Oft seen in charnel- vaults and sepulchers. 

Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave. 

As loath to leave the body that it loved. 

And linked itself by carnal sensualty 
To a degenerate and degraded state. ^ 475 

Sec. Bro. How charming is divine Philosophy ! 

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose. 

But musical as is Apollo’s lute. 

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets. 

Where no crude surfeit reigns. 480 

Eld Bro. List ! list ! I hear 

Some far-off halloo break the silent air. 

* Sec. Bro. Methought so too; what should it be? 

Eld. Bro. For certain, 

Either some one, like us, night-foundered here. 

Or else some neighbor woodman, or, at worst. 

Some roving robber calling to his fellows. 


485 


COM US 


87 


Sec. Bro. Heaven keep my sister! Again, again, 
and near! 

Best draw, and stand upon onr guard. 

Eld. Bro. I’ll halloo. 

If he be friendly, he comes well: if not. 

Defense is a good cause, and Heaven be for us ! 489 

The Attendant Spirit, habited like a shepherd 

That halloo I should know. What are you ? Speak. 
Come not too near ; you fall on iron stakes else.— 
Spir. W^hat voice is that? my young Lord? speak 
again. 

Sec. Bro. 0 brother, ’tis my father’s Shepherd, sure. 
Eld. Bro. Thyrsis! whose artful strains have oft 
delayed 

The huddling brook to hear his madrigal, 495 

And sweetened every musk-rose of the dale. 

How earnest thou here, good swain? Hath any ram 
Slipped from the fold, or young kid lost his dam. 

Or straggling wether the pent flock forsook? 

How couldst thou And this dark sequestered nook ? 500 
Spir. 0 my loved master’s heir, and his next joy, 

I came not here on such a trivial toy 

As a strayed ewe, or to pursue the stealth 

Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth 

That doth enrich these downs is worth a thought 505 

To this my errand, and the care it brought. 

But, oh! my virgin Lady, where is she? 

How chance she is not in your company? 


88 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Eld. Bro. To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without 
blame 

Or our neglect, we lost her as we came. 510 

Spir. Aye me unhappy ! then my fears are true. 

Eld. Bro. What fears, good Thyrsis? Prithee 
briefly shew. 

Spir. 1^11 tell ye. ^Tis not vain or fabulous 
(Though so esteemed by shallow ignorance) 

What the sage poets, taught by the heavenly Muse, 515 
Storied of old in high immortal verse 
Of dire Chimeras and enchanted isles. 

And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell; 

For such there be, but unbelief is blind. 

Within the navel of this hideous wood, 520 

Immured in cypress shades, a sorcerer dwells. 

Of Bacchus and of Circe born, great Comus, 

Deep skilled in all his mother’s witcheries. 

And here to every thirsty wanderer 
By sly enticement gives his baneful cup, 525 

With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison 
The. visage quite transforms of him that drinks. 

And the inglorious likeness of a beast 
Fixes instead, unmolding reason’s mintage 
Charactered in the face. This have I learnt 530 

Tending my flocks hard by i’ the hilly crofts 
That brow this bottom glade; whence night by night 
He and his monstrous rout are heard to howl 
Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey. 

Doing abhorred rites to Hecate 535 

In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers. 


COM US 


89 


Yet have they many baits and guileful spells 
To inveigle and invite the unwary sense 
Of them that pass nnweeting by the way. 

This evening late, by then the chewing flocks 540 
Had ta^en their supper on the savory herb 
Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold, 

I sat me down to watch upon a bank 

With ivy canopied, and interwove 

With flaunting honeysuckle, and began, 545 

Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy. 

To meditate my rural minstrelsy, 

^Till fancy had her fill. But ere a close 
The wonted roar was up amidst the woods. 

And filled the air with barbarous dissonance; 550 
At which I ceased, and listened them awhile. 

Till an unusual stop of sudden silence 
Gave respite to the drowsy-fiighted steeds 
That draw the litter of close-curtained Sleep. 

At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound 555 

Eose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes. 

And stole upon the air, that even Silence 
Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might 
Deny her nature, and be never more. 

Still to be so displaced. I was all ear, 560 

And took in strains that might create a soul 
Under the ribs of Death. f But, oh! ere long 
Too well I did perceive it was the voice 
Of my most honored Lady, your dear sister. 

Amazed I stood, harrowed with grief and fear; 565 
And 0 poor hapless nightingale,^^ thought I, 


90 


MILTON^S POEMS 


How sweet thou sing’st, how near the deadly snare ! 
Then down the lawns I ran with headlong haste, 
Through paths and turnings often trod by day, 

Till, guided by mine ear, I found the place 570 

Where that damned wizard, hid in sly disguise 
(For so by certain signs I knew), had met 
Already, ere my best speed could prevent. 

The aidless innocent lady, his wished prey ; 

Who gently asked if he had seen such two, 575 

Supposing him some neighbor villager. 

Longer I durst not stay, but soon I guessed 
Ye were the two she meant ; with that I sprung 
Into swift flight, till I had found you here ; 

But further know I not. 

Sec. Bro. 0 night and shades, 580 

How are ye joined with hell in triple knot 
Against the unarmed weakness of one virgin. 

Alone and helpless ! Is this the confldence 
You gave me, brother? 

Eld. Bro. Yes, and keep it still; 

Lean on it safely ; not a period 585 

Shall be unsaid for me. Against the threats 
Of malice or of sorcery, or that power 
Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm : 

Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt. 

Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled ; 590 

Yea, even that which Mischief meant most harm 
Shall in the happy trial prove most glory. 

But evil on itself shall back recoil, 

And mix no more with goodness, when at last. 


COMUS 


91 


Gathered like scum, and settled to itself, 595 

It shall be in eternal restless change 
Self-fed and self-consumed. If this fail. 

The pillared firmament is rottenness. 

And earth^s base built on stubble. But come, let’s on ! 
Against the opposing will and arm of Heaven 600 
May never this just sword be lifted up ; 

But, for that damned magician, let him be girt 
With all the grisly legions that troop 
Under the sooty flag of Acheron, 

Harpies and Hydras, or all the monstrous forms 605 
’Twixt Africa and Ind, I’ll find him out. 

And force him to return his purchase back, 

Or drag him by the curls to a foul death. 

Cursed as his life. 

Spir. Alas ! good venturous youth, 

I love thy courage yet, and bold emprise; 610 

But here thy sword can do thee little stead. 

Far other arms and other weapons must 
Be those that quell the might of hellish charms. 

He with his bare wand can unthread thy joints. 

And crumble all thy sinews. 

Eld. Bro. Why, prithee. Shepherd, 615 

How durst thou then thyself approach so near 
As to make this relation ? 

Spir. Care and utmost shifts 

How to secure the Lady from surprisal 
Brought to my mind a certain shepherd lad. 

Of small regard to see to, yet well skilled 620 

In every virtuous plant and healing herb 


92 


MILTON\^ POEMS 


That spreads her verdant leaf to the morning ray. 

He loved me well, and oft wonli beg me sing ; 

Which when I did, he on the tender grass 

Would sit, and hearken even to ecstasy, 625 

And in requital ope his leathern scrip. 

And show me simples of a thousand names. 

Telling their strange and vigorous faculties. 

Amongst the rest a small unsightly root. 

But of divine effect, he culled me out. 630 

The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, 

But in another country, as he said. 

Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil : 
Unknown, and like esteemed, and the dull swain 
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon; 635 

And yet more medicinal is it than that Moly 
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave. 

He called it Haemony, and gave it me. 

And bade me keep it as of sovran use 

^Gainst all enchantments, mildew blast, or damp, 640 

Or ghastly Furies’ apparition. 

I pursed it up, but little reckoning made. 

Till now that this extremity compelled. 

But now I find it true ; for by this means 
I knew the foul enchanter, though disguised, 645 

Entered the very lime-twigs of his spells. 

And yet came off. If you have this about you 
(As I will give you when we go) you may 
Boldly assault the necromancer’s hall ; 

Where if he be, with dauntless hardihood 650 

And brandished blade rush on him: break his glass. 


COMUS 


93 


And shed the luscious liquor on the ground ; 

But seize his wand. Though he and his curst crew 
Fierce sign of battle rnake^ and menace high. 

Or, like the sons of Vulcan, vomit smoke, 655 

Yet will they soon retire, if he but shrink. 

. Eld. Bro. Thyrsis, lead on apace ; I’ll follow thee ; 
And some good angel bear a shield before us ! 


The Scene changes to a stately palace, set out with all manner 
of deliciousness: soft music, tables spread with all dainties. 
CoKUS appears with his rabble, and the Lady set in an 
enchanted Chair: to whom he offers his gla^s; which she 
puts by, and goes about to rise 

Comm. Nay, Lady, sit. If I but wave this wand. 
Your nerves are all chained up in alabaster, 660 

And you a statue, or as Daphne was, 

Eoot-bound, that fled Apollo. 

Lady. Fool, do not boast. 

Thou canst not toucji the freedom of my mind 
With all thy eharms^although this corporal rind 
Thou hast immanacled while Heaven sees good. 665 
Comus. Why are you vexed. Lady? why do you 
frown ? 

Here dwell no frowns, nor anger; from these gates 
Sorrow flies far. See, here be all the pleasures 
That fancy can beget on youthful thoughts. 

When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns 670 
Brisk as the April buds in primrose season. 

And flrst behold this cordial julep here. 

That flames and dances in his crystal bounds. 


94 


MILTON’S POEMS 


AVith spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed. 
Not that Hj^epenthes which the wife of Thone 
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena 
Is of such power to stir up joy as this, 

To life so friendly, or so cool to thirst. 

AV'hy should you be so cruel to yourself. 

And to those dainty limbs, which Nature lent 
For gentle usage and soft delicacy ? 

But you invert the covenants of her trust. 

And harshly deal, like an ill borrower, 

AV'ith that which you received on other terms. 
Scorning the unexempt condition 
By which all mortal frailty must subsist. 
Refreshment after toil, ease after pain. 

That have been tired all day without repast. 

And timely rest have wanted. But, fair virgin. 
This will restore all soon. 

Lady, ^Twill not, false traitor ! 

^ Twill not restore the truth and honesty 
That thou hast banished from thy tongue with lies. 
AV'ds this the cottage and the safe abode 
Thou told^st me of?. What grim aspects are these. 
These’ ugly-headed monsters ? Mercy guard me ! 
Hence with thy brewed enchantments, foul deceiver ! 
Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence 
With visored falsehood and base forgery? 

And WQuldst thou seek again to trap me here 
With liquorish baits, fit to ensnare a brute? 

Were it a draught for Juno when she banquets, 

I would not taste thy treasonous offer. None 


675 

680 

685 

690 

695 

I 

700 


COMUS 


95 


But such as are good men can give good things ; 

And that which is not good is not delicious 
To a well-governed and wise appetite.* 705 

Comus. 0 foolishness of men! that lend their ears 
To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur. 

And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub. 

Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence I 

Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth 710 

With such a full and un withdrawing hand, 

Covering the earth with odors, fruits, and flocks. 
Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable. 

But all to please and sate the curious taste ? 

And set to work millions of spinning worms, 715 

That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk. 
To deck her sons ; and, that no corner might 
Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins 
She hutched the all-worshiped ore and precious gems, 
To store her children with. If all the world 720 

Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse. 

Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze. 
The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised. 
Not half his riches known, and yet despised; 

And we should serve him as a grudging master, 725 
As a penurious niggard of his wealth. 

And live like Nature^s bastards, not her sons, 

Who would be quite surcharged with her own weight. 
And strangled with her waste fertility: 

The earth cumbered, and the winged air darked with 
plumes, 730 

The herds would ovqf-multitude their lords ; 


96 


MILTON'S POEMS 


The sea o^erfraught would swell, and the unsought 
diamonds 

Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep. 

And so bestud with stars, that they below 

Would grow inured to light, and come at last 735 

To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. 

List, Lady ; be not coy, and be not cozened 
With that same vaunted name. Virginity. 

Beauty is Nature’s coin; must not be hoarded. 

But must be current ; and the good thereof - 740 

Consists in mutual and partaken bliss. 

Unsavory in the enjoyment of itself. 

If you let slip time, like a neglected rose 
It withers on the stalk with languished head. 

Beauty is Nature’s brag, and must be shown 745 

In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities. 

Where most may wonder at the workmanship. 

It is for homely features to keep home ; 

They had their name thence : coarse complexions 
And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply 750 

The sampler, and to tease the huswife’s wool. 

What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that. 

Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? 

There was another meaning in these gifts; 

Think what, and be advised; you are but young yet. 755 
Lady. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips 
In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler 
Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes, 
Obtruding false rules pranked in reason’s garb. 

I hate when vice can bolt her arguments 760 


COMUS 


97 


And virtue has no tongue to check her pride. 

Impostor ! do not charge most innocent Nature, 

As if she would her children should be riotous 
AVith her abundance. She, good cateress. 

Means her provision only to the good, 765 

That live according to her sober laws. 

And holy dictate of spare Temperance. 

If every just man that now pines with want 
Had but a moderate and beseeming share 
Of that which lewdly-pampered Luxury 770 

Now heaps upon some few with vast excess, 

Nature^s full blessings would be well-dispensed 
In unsuperfluous even proportion. 

And she no whit encumbered with her store ; 

And then the Giver would be better thanked, 775 

His praise due paid : for swinish gluttony 

Ne’er looks to Heaven amidst his gorgeous feast. 

But with besotted base ingratitude 

Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. Shall I go on? 

Or have Lsaid enow? To him that dares 780 

Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words 
Against the sun-clad power of chastity 
Fain would I something say; — ^yet to what end? 

Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend 
The sublime notion and high mystery 785 

That must be uttered to unfold the sage 
And serious doctrine of 'Virginity; 

And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know 
More happiness than this thy present lot. 

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric, 790 


98 


MILTON^S POEMS 


That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence ; 

Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced. 

Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth 
Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits 
To such a flame of sacred vehemence 795 

That dumb things would be moved to sympathize. 

And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and shake, 
Till all thy magic structures, reared so high. 

Were shattered into heaps o^er thy false head. 

Comm. She fables not. I feel that I do fear 800 
Her words set off by some superior power ; 

And, though not mortal, yet a cold shuddering dew 
Dips me all o^er, as when the wrath of Jove 
Speaks thunder and the chains of Erebus 
To some of Saturn^s crew. I must dissemble, 805 
And try her yet more strongly. — Come, no more ! 

This is mere moral babble, and direct 
Against the canon laws of our foundation. 

I must not suffer this ; yet Tis but the lees 

And settlings of a melancholy blood. 810 

But this will cure all straight ; one sip of this 

Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight 

Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste . . . 

The Brothers rush in with swords drawn, wrest his glass out 
of his hand, and break it against the ground: his rout 
make sign of resistance, but^ are all driven in. The 
Attendant Spirit comes in 

Spir. What ! have you let the false enchanter scape ? 
0, ye mistook; ye should have snatched his wand, 815 


COM US 


99 


And bound him fast. Without his rod reversed, 

And backward mutters of dissevering power, 

We cannot free the Lady that sits here 
In stony fetters fixed and motionless. 

Yet stay : be not disturbed ; now I bethink me, 820 
Some other means I have which may be used. 

Which once of Meliboeus old I learnt. 

The soothest shepherd that e’er piped on plains. 

There is a gentle Yymph not far from hence. 

That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn 
stream : 825 

Sabrina is her name : a virgin pure ; 

Whilom she was the daughter of Locrine, 

That had the scepter from his father Brute. 

She, guiltless damsel, flying the mad pursuit 

Of her enraged stepdame, Guendolen, 830 

Commended her fair innocence to the flood 

That stayed her flight with his cross-flowing course. 

The water-nymphs, that in the bottom played. 

Held up their pearled wrists, and took her in. 

Bearing her straight to aged Kerens’ hall; 835 

Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head. 

And gave her to his daughters to imbathe 
In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel. 

And through the porch and inlet of each sense 
Dropt in ambrosial oils, til^she revived, 840 

And underwent a quick immortal change. 

Made Goddess of the river. Still she retains 
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve 
Visits the herds along the twilight meadows, 


100 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Helping all urchin blasts^ and ill-luck signs 
That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make, 
Which she with precious vialed liquors heals : 

For which the shepherds, at their festivals, 

Carol her goodness loud in rustic lays. 

And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream 
Of pansies, pinks, and gaudy daffodils. 

And, as the old swain said, she can unlock 
The clasping charm, and thaw the numbing spell. 
If she be right invoked in warbled song; 

For maidenhood she loves, and will be swift 
To aid a virgin, such as was herself. 

In hard-besetting need. This will I try. 

And add the power of some adjuring verse. 

Song 

Sabrina fair. 

Listen where thou art sitting 
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave. 

In twisted braids of lilies knitting 
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair; 
Listen for dear honoFs sake. 

Goddess of the silver lake. 

Listen and save ! 

Listen, and appear to us. 

In name of great Oceanus, 

By the earth-shaking Hep tune’s mace, 

And Tethys’ grave majestic pace; 

By hoary Hereus’ wrinkled look. 


845 

850 

855 

860 

865 


870 


COMUS 


101 


And the Carpathian wizard^s hook; 

By scaly Triton^s winding shell, 

And old soothsaying Glaucns^ spell ; 

By Leucothea^s lovely hands. 

And her son that rules the strands ; 

By Thetis^ tinsel-slippered feet. 

And the songs of Sirens sweet; 

By dead Parthenope’s dear tomb. 

And fair Ligea^s golden comb. 

Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks 
Sleeking her soft alluring locks ; 

By all the nymphs that nightly dance 
Upon thy streams with wily glance; 

Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head 
From thy coral-paven bed. 

And bridle in thy headlong wave. 

Till thou our summons answered have. 

Listen and save! 

Sabrina rises, attended hy Water-nymphs, and sings 

By the rushy-fringed bank. 

Where grows the willow and the osier dank. 

My sliding chariot stays. 

Thick set with agate, and the azurn sheen 
Of turkis blue, and emerald green. 

That in the channel strays: 

Whilst from off the waters fleet 
Thus I set my printless feet 
O’er the cowslip s velvet head. 


875 

880 

885 

890 

895 


102 


MILTON^S POEMS 


That bends not as I tread. 

Gentle swain, at thy request 
I am here! 

Spiv. Goddess dear, 

We implore thy powerful hand 
To undo the charmed band 
Of true virgin here distressed 
Through the force and through the wile 
Of unblessed enchanter vile. 

Sabr, Shepherd, Tis my office best 
To help ensnared chastity. 

Brightest Lady, look on me. 

Thus I sprinkle on thy breast 
Drops that from my f ountain^ pure 
I have kept of precious cure; 

Thrice upon thy finger’s tip. 

Thrice upon thy rubied lip : 

N’ext this marble venomed seat. 

Smeared with gums of glutinous heat, 

I touch with chaste palms moist and cold. 

'Now the spell hath lost his hold; 

And I must haste ere morning hour 
To wait in Amphitrite’s bower. 

Sabrina descends, and the Lady rises out of her seat 

Spir, Virgin, daughter of Locrine, 

Sprung of old Anchises’ line. 

May thy brimmed waves for this 
Their full tribute never miss 


900 

905 

910 

915 

920 


925 • 


COMUS 


103 


From a thousand petty rills, 

That tumble down the snowy hills : 

Summer drought or singed air 
Never scorch thy tresses fair. 

Nor wet October’s torrent flood 
Thy molten crystal All with mud; 

May thy billows roll ashore 
The beryl and the golden ore ; 

May thy lofty head be crowned 
With many a tower and terrace round. 

And here and there thy banks upon 
With groves of myrrh and cinnamon. 

Come, Lady; while Heaven lends us grace. 
Let us fly this cursed place. 

Lest the sorcerer us entice 
With some other new device. 

Not a waste or needless sound 
Till we come to holier ground. 

I shall be your faithful guide 
Through this gloomy covert wide; 

And not many furlongs thence 
Is your Father’s residence, 

Where this night are met in state 
Many a friend to gratulate 
His wished presence, and beside 
All the swains that there abide 
With jigs and rural dance resort. 

We shall catch them at their sport. 

And our sudden coming there 
Will double all their mirth and cheer. 


930 


935 


940 


945 


950 


955 


104 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Come, let us haste; the stars grow high, 

But Night sits monarch yet in the mid sky. 

The' Scene changes, presenting Ludlow Town, and the Presi- 
dents Castle: then come in Country Dancers; after them 
the Attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers and the 
Lady 


Song 

Spiv. Back, shepherds, back! Enough your play 
Till next sunshine holiday. 

Here be, without duck or nod, 960 

Other trippings to be trod 

Of lighter toes, and such court guise 

As Mercury did first devise 

With the mincing Dryades 

On the lawns and on the leas. 965 

This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother 

Noble Lord and Lady bright, 

I have brought ye new delight. 

Here behold so goodly grown 
Three fair branches of your own. 

Heaven hath timely tried their youth, 970 

Their faith, their patience, and their truth. 

And sent them here through hard assays 
With a crown of deathless praise. 

To triumph in victorious dance 

O’er sensual folly and intemperance. 975 

The dcmces ended, the Spirit epiloguizes 


COMUS 


Spir. To the ocean now I fly, 

And those happy climes that lie 
Where day never shuts his eye, 

Up in the broad fields of the sky. 

There I suck the liquid air. 

All amidst the gardens fair 
Of Hesperus, and his daughters three 
That sing about the golden tree. 

Along the crisped shades and bowers 
Eevels the spruce and Jocund Spring; 

The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours 
Thither all their bounties bring. 

There eternal Summer dwells. 

And west winds with musky wing 
About the cedarn alleys fling 
Hard and cassia^s balmy smells. 

Iris there with humid bow 
Waters the odorous banks, that blow 
Flowers of more mingled hue 
Than her purfied scarf can shew. 

And drenches with Elysian dew 
(List, mortals, if your ears be true) 

Beds of hyacinth and roses. 

Where young Adonis oft reposes. 

Waxing well of his deep wound. 

In slumber soft, and on the ground 
Sadly sits the Assyrian queen. 

But far above, in spangled sheen. 

Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced. 
Holds his dear Psyche, sweet entranced 


106 


MILTOWS POEMS 


After her wtodering labors long^ 

Till free consent the gods among 
Make her his eternal bride, 

And from her fair unspotted side 

Two blissful twins are to be born, 1010 

Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn. 

But now my task is smoothly done; 

I can fly, or I can run 
Quickly to the green earth’s end. 

Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend, 1015 

And from thence can soar as soon 
To the corners of the moon. 

Mortals, that would follow me. 

Love Virtue.; she alone is free. 

She can teach ye how to climb 1020 

Higher than the sphery chime; 

Or, if Virtue feeble were, ^ 

Heaven itself would stoop to her. 


LYCIDAS 

In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Friend, unfortu- 
nately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish 
Seas, 1637 ; and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our 
corrupted Clergy, then in their height. 

Yet once more, 0 ye laurels, and once m(^e. 

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,^'^ 


LYCIDAS ' \ ’ 107 

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, 

And with forced fingers rude 

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 5 
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 
Compels me to disturb your season due; 

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, / 

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 

Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew 10 

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. 

He must not float. upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind. 

Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

Begin, then, Sist^s of the sacred well 15 

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; 

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the stri^g. 

Hence ^ith denial vain and coy excuse : 

So may some gentle Muse 

With lucky words favor my destined urn, 20 

And as he passes turn, 

x\nd bid fair peace be to my sable shroud! 

For we were nursed upon the selfsame hill, 

Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill; 
Together both, ere the high lawns Speared 25 

Under the opening eyelids of the Morn, 

We drove afield, and both together heard 
What time the grayfly winds her sultry horn. 
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night. 

Oft till the star that rose at evening bright 30 

Toward heaven^s descent had sloped his westering wheel. 
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute. 


108 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Tempered to the oaten flute ; 

Eough Satyrs danced^ and Fauns with cloven heel 
From the glad sound would not be absent long; 35 
And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. , 

But, oh ! the heavy change, now thou art gone. 

Now thou art gone and never must return! 

Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves. 

With wild thyme and the gadding vine overgrown, 40 
And all their echoes, mourn. 

The willows, and the hazel copses green, 

Shall now no more be seen 

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 

As killing as the canken to the rose, 45 

Or taint- worm to the weanling herds that graze. 

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, 

When first the whitethorn blows; 

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s ear. 

Where were ye. Nymphs, when the remorseless . 
deep . 50 ; , 

Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas ? ; 

For neither were ye playing on the steep 

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie^ ' 

Nor on the shaggy topmf MopaTTiigh, - ’ 

Nor yet where Dbya s^r^ds her wizard stream. 55 
Aye me! I dream 

Had ye been there,” . . . for what could that have 
done? ^ _ 

What could the tfuse hekelf that Orpheus bore. 

The Muse herself, for her enchanting son. 

Whom universal nature did lament, 60 


LYCIDAS 


109 


When^ by the rout that made the hideous roar. 

His gory visage down the stream was sent, 

Down the swift He^us to the Lesbian shore? 

Alas ! whdLlS6(5fs it with uncessant care 
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd^s trade, > 

And strictly meditate the thankless MusepA-'M^-A.-^^^ 

Were it not better done, as others use. 

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, , . ; . 

Or with the tangles of ^^eaera^s hair? y ^ V 

Fame is the spur that the (^"S^lpirit doth raise 70 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 

To scorn delights and live laborious days; 

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find. 

And think to burst out into sudden blaze. 

Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears. 

And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,’^ 
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears : 

Fame is no plant that grows on morfal soil. 

Nor in the glistering foil 

S^t off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies, 80 

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
And perfect witness of all- judging Jove; 

As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 

Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed/^ 

0 fountain Arethuse, and thou honored flood, 85 
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds. 

That strain I heard was of a higher mood. 

But now my oat proceeds. 

And listens to the Herald of the Sea, 

That came in NTeptune's plea. 90 


no 


MILTON'S POEMS 


He asked the waves^ and asked the felon winds^ 

What hard mishap hath doomed this gentle swain ? 

And questioned every gust of rugged wings 
That blows from off each beaked promontory. 

They knew not of his story; 95 

And sage Hippotades their answer brings, - ■ 

That not a blast was from his dungeon strayed: 

The air was calm, and on the level brine-^ 

Sleek Panope with all her sisters played. 

It was that fatal and perfidious bark, 100 

Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark. 

That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 

ISText, Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, 

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sed^e. 

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 105 

Like to that sangdine flower inscribed with woe. 

All ! who hath ref t,^^ quoth he, my dearest pledge ? 
Last came, and last did go, 

♦The Pilot of the Galilean Lake ; 

Two massy keys he bove of metals twain' 110 

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain). 

He shook his mitered locks, and stern bespake: — 

How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 
• Enow of such as, for their bellies^ sake. 

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! 115 

Of other care they little reckoning make 
Than how to scramble at the shearers’ feast. 

And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 

Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to 
hold 


LYCIDAS 


111 


A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least 120 
That to the faithful herdman’s art belongs ! 

What rec^s^t them ? What need they ? They are sp^ ; 
And, when they list, their lean and fla^y songs 
Grate on their scrarifeel pipes of wretched straw; 

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125 

But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, 

Eot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; 

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing said. 

But that two-handed engine at the door 130 

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no mor'e.^^ 
Eeturn, Alpheus ; the dread voice is past 
That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, 

And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues. 135 

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks. 

On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks. 

Throw hither all your quaint enameled eyes. 

That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, 140 
And purple aU jthe ground with vernal flowers. 

Bring the tm^^primrose that forsaken dies. 

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine. 

The whife pink, and the pansy freaked with jet. 

The glowing violet, 145 

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine. 

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head. 

And every flower that sad embroidery wears ; 

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed. 


112 


MILTON^S POEMS 


And daffadillies fill their cups with tears^ 150 

To strew the l 3 Jii:^te hdar^ where Lycid lies. 

For so, to interpose a little ease, 

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. 

Aye me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 
Wash far away, wherever thy bones are hurled; 155 
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 

Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide 
VisiFst the bottom of the monstrous world ; 

Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 

'Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old, 160 

Where the great Vision of the guarded mount 
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold. 

Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth : 

And, 0 ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. 

Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more. 165 
'For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead. 

Sunk though he be beneath the watery fioor. 

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed. 

And yet anon repairs his drooping head. 

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 170 
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky ; 

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high. 

Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. 
Where, other groves and other streams along. 

With nectar pure his oozy locks he lav^, 175 

And hears the unexpressive nuptial song 
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 

There entertain him all the saints above. 

In solemn troops and sweet societies. 


LYCIDAS 


113 


That sing^ and singing in their glory move, 180 

And wipe the tears forever from his eyes. 

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more; 

Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore. 

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 
To all that wander in that perilous fiood^^ 185 

Thus sang the unc^Tlfli swain to the oaks and rills, t 
While the still morn went out with sandals gray; 

He touched the tender stops of various quflk;' 

With eager thought warbling his Doric l^y ; 

And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 190 
And now was dropt into the western bay. 

At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue ; 
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. 

AN EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATIC POET, 
W. SHAKSPERE 

\ 

What needs my Shakspere for his honored bones 
The labor of an age in piled stones ? 

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid 
Under a star-ypointing pyramid? 

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 5 

What need^st thou such weak witness of thy name? 
Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
Hast built thyself a livelong monument. 

For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art 
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart 10 

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book 
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took. 


114 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving; 

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving ; 

And so sepulchered in such pomp dost lie 15 

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. 

SONNETS 

o 

Q \ TO THE NIGHTINGALE 

0 Nightingale that on yon bloomy spray 
WarbFst at eve, when all the woods are still. 

Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart dost fill. 

While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. 

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 5 

First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill. 

Portend success in love. 0, if Jove’s will 
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay. 

Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; 10 
As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why. 

Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate. 

Both them I serve, and of their train am I. / 

ON HIS HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY- 
THREE 

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, 

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year ! 

My hasting days fiy on with full career. 


SONNETS 


115 


But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th. 

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 5 

That I to manhood am arrived so near ; 

And inward ripeness doth much less appear, 

That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th. 

Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow, 

It shall be still in strictest measure even 10 

To that same lot, however mean or high. 

Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. 
All is, if I have grace to use it so. 

As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye. 

\ TO MR. H. LAWES, ON HIS AIRS 

Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song 
First taught our English music how to span 
Words with just note and accent, not to scan 
With Midas’ ears, committing short and long. 

Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, 5 
With praise enough for Envy to look wan; 

To after age thou shalt be writ the man 
That with smooth air couldst humor best our tongue. 
Thou honor’st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing 
To honor thee, the priest of Phoebus’ quire, 10 

That tunest their happiest lines in hymn or story. 

Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher 
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing. 

Met in the milder shades of Purgatory. 


MILTOmn POEMS 


116 - 


ON THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX, AT THE SlEGE 
OF COLCHESTER 



^ Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings, 
Pilling each mouth with envy or with praise. 

And all her jealous monarchs with amaze. 

And rumors loud that daunt remotest kings. 

Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings 5 

Victory home, though new rebellions raise 
Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays 
Her broken league to imp their serpent wings. 

0 yet a nobler task awaits thy hand 

(For what can war but endless war still breed?) 10 

Till truth and right from violence be freed. 

And public faith cleared from the shameful brand 
Of public fraud. In vain doth Valor bleed. 

While Avarice and Eapine share the land. 


TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL, MAY, 1652 

ON THE PROPOSALS OF CERTAIN MINISTERS AT THE COMMITTEE 
FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud 
Not of war only, but detractions rude. 

Guided by faith and matchless fortitude. 

To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plowed, 

And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud 5 

Hast reared God^s trophies, and his work pursued. 
While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, 
Arid Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud. 


SONNETS 


117 


"t"' Y 

.And Worcester's laureate wreath : yet much remains 
To conquer still ; Peace hath her victories 10 

No less renowned than War: new foes arise, 
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains. 

Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw. 

\ ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT 

Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; 

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old. 

When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones, 
Forget not : in thy book record their groans 5 

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled 
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 10 
O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
The triple Tyrant ; that from these may grow 
A hundredfold, who having learnt the way 
Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 

ON HIS BLINDNESS 

When I consider Kbw my light is spent 
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide. 

And that one talent which is death to hide 
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
To serve therewith my Maker, and present 


5 


118 


MILTON^S POEMS 


My true account, lest He returning chide ; 

Doth God exact day-labor, light denied ? 

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need 
Either man^s work or his own gifts. Who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
Is kingly : thousands at his bidding speed. 

And post o’er land and ocean without rest ; 

They also serve who only stand and wait.” 


NOTES 


ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY 

5. Holy sages: The Prophets. See Paradise Lost, xii, 324. 

6 . Deadly forfeit : The penalty of death, incurred through 
Adam’s fall. 

10. Wont : Was wont, used. Wo7it is the preterit of the 
old verb won, Anglo-Saxon, wunian, to dwell, thence to do 
habitually. 

14. Darksome house: Compare II Penseroso, 90-91. 

15. Heavenly Muse : Milton begins Paradise Lost with an 
invocation to the ‘^Heavenly Muse.” 

23. Wizards: Wise men; the original meaning of the word. 
Cf. Spenser’s Strong advizement of six wisards old {Faerie 
Queene, i, 4 , 12 ). 

24. Prevent : Anticipate, forestall ; Latin prce-venire, to 
come before. 

27. Angel quire : See Luke, ii, 13-14; and Paradise Re- 
gained, i, 242. 

28. Secret altar, etc.: See Isaiah, vi, 6 . 

39. Guilty front : According to medieval theology, nature 
was involved in Adam’s fall, and hence she hides her guilty face. 
In making the snow innocent, the poet is probably as consistent 
as the theologians. 

41. Pollute: A contracted form of the participle, often 
used by Milton, as situate for situated, devote, and increate. 

45. To cease : To cause to cease, as in Cymheline, v, 5 , 255: 

A. certain stuff, which being ta’en would cease 
The present power of life.” 

48. Turning sphere : The nine revolving spheres of the 
Ptolemaic theory, here regarded as one system or universe. 
See note on 1. 125, below. 


119 


120 


MILTOWS POEMS 


50. Tiirtle wing: Wing of the turtle-dove. 

52. Strikes: The metaphor is that of the enchanter with 
his mg,gic wand. Note the symbols of peace in the stanza. 

56. Hooked chariot : The ancient war-chariot, with scythes 
or hooks upon the wheels. 

59. Awful: Full of awe, awestruck. Shakspere has ^Hhe 
awless lion.” {King John, i, 1.) 

60. Sovran : Milton’s usual form, which is nearer the original 
than sovereign; Italian, sovrano ; Latin, superanus. See Skeat’s 
Etymological Dictionary. 

64. Whist: Hushed; the interjection whist, or hist, used 
as a participle. Cf. The Tempest, i, 2 , 379 : 

^^And kiss’d 
The wild waves whist.” 

65. Ocean: Rhythmically, three syllables; so union, 1. 108, 
and session, 1. 163. 

68. Birds of calm: Halcyons, or kingfishers. According 
to ancient belief, at the time of the winter solstice, when these 
birds were breeding, in a nest floating on the water, the sea 
was miraculously calm. The story of the transformation of 
Halcyone and her husband into kingfishers is told in Ovid’s 
Metamorphoses, xi. 

71. Precious influence: An astrological expression. When- 
ever this word occurs in our poetry, down to comparatively a 
modern day, it refers to invisible illapses of power, skyey 
planetary effects, supposed to be exercised by the heavenly 
luminaries upon the lives of men ” (Trench). See U Allegro, 122, 
and note. 

73. For all: Notwithstanding; as in Macbeth, iv, 2 , 36: 
^‘My father is not dead for all your saying.” So Burns’s ^Hor 
a’ that.” 

74. Lucifer: The morning star (light-bearer). ^^How art 
thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” 
(Isaiah, xiv, 12). From this passage Lucifer came to be 
identified with Satan. See Paradise Lost, x, 425. 


NOTES 


121 


76 Bespake: Spake. the few places in Milton where 

bespake occurs, it is emphatic, the prefix be giving a slightly 
intensive force (Browne). 

81. As : As if. 

85. Lawn: Pasture; originally, an open space in a forest. 
See the description of the groves of Paradise, Paradise Lost, iv, 
252: 

‘‘Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks 
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed.” 

86. Or ere : Before. Or, meaning before (Anglo-Saxon aer, 
ere), is common in early English, as in Chaucer. Cf. Hamlet, 
i, 2, 147. “It is probable that or ere arose as a reduplicated 
expression, in which ere repeats and explains or” (Skeat). 

88. Than: Milton takes advantage of the old form of 
then, not entirely obsolete in his time, for the sake of the rhyme. 

89. Mighty Pan : In mythology. Pan was originally the god 
of hills, woods, flocks, and shepherds; later he was regarded as 
the symbol of all nature or the universe. Spenser, in the 
Shepherd's Calendar (May), has: “When great Pan account 
of shepherdes shall aske,” and the Glosse explains this: “Great 
Pan is Christ, the very God of all shepheards, which calleth 
himselfe the greate and good shepherd. The name is most 
rightly (methinkes) applyed to him; for Pan signifieth all, or 
omnipotent, which is onely the Lord Jesus.” 

92. Silly: Simple; Anglo-Saxon saelig, happy, deteriorating 
to innocent, then to foolish. Cf. 3 Henry VI, ii, 5, 43: “Shepherds 
looking on their silly sheep.” 

95. Strook: Apparently Milton’s “favorite form of the 
past tense and participle of the verb strike” (Masson). 

97. Noise: Music. So Spenser has “an heavenly noise” 
{Faerie Queene, i, i 2 , 39). Cf. At a Solemn Music, 1. 18, “that 
melodious noise.” 

98. As all, etc.: Such must be understood from 1. 93 before 
Divinely-warbled. 

100. Close: The cadence or conclusion of a strain of 
music. 


122 


MILTON^S POEMS 


101. Nature, hearing such sound thrilling the airy region 
beneath the vaulted dome of the moon’s dwelling place, i.e., 
the heavens, was now, etc. Cynthia is from Mt. Cynthus in 
Delos, the birthplace of Diana, or Artemis, goddess of the moon. 

106. Its: One of the three places where Milton uses this 
word in his poetry. The others are Paradise Lost, i, 254, and 
iv, 813. Shakspere used the word only ten times, and in the 
Authorized Version of the Bible (1611) its does not occur at 
all. This .shows with what suspicion the word was regarded 
during this period of struggle for recognition. 

112, 113. Helmed cherubim: The meaning of the epithets 
here is not clear. It was the cherubim that guarded the gates 
of Eden ^^with a flaming sword” {Genesis, iii, 24). “He may 
mean that the cherubim were the more purely defensive 
spirits, the seraphim more active” (Hales). 

116. Unexpressive : Inexpressible. So in Lycidas, 176. Cf. 
As You Like It, iii, 2, 10: “The fair, the chaste, and unex- 
pressive she.” 

117-124. This stanza is a poetic rendering of Job, xxxviii. 
4-11. 

125. Although the Copernican theory of the universe was 
known to Milton, he adopted for poetic purposes the Ptolemaic 
theory, according to which the earth is the center of our universe, 
and is inclosed within nine concentric crystalline spheres, a 
sphere for each of the five planets known to the ancients, one 
each for the sun, moon, and stars, and the primum mobile, 
which gives motion to the others. With Pythagoras arose 
the theory that the movement of these spheres produces an 
incomparable harmony, the “music of the spheres,” so much 
admired, in imagination, by ancient poets and philosophers. 
Cf. Arcades, 63-67. ^ 

127. If ye have power, etc.: It was a part of the ancient 
belief about this celestial music that human ears are too gross to 
perceive it. See Merchant of Venice, v, i, 60-65. In an early 
essay upon the subject, Milton maintained that men might 
hear this music, were their hearts and souls sufficiently pure. 


NOTES 


123 


132. Consort: Concert; literally, fellowship. Cf. a Sol- 
emn Music j 27, where the word is used in the sense of quire. 
Cf. II Penseroso, 145. 

135. Age of gold : The golden age, or Saturnian age, when 
perfect peace and happiness prevailed. Ovid’s Metamorphoses. 
i, 89-112. 

136. Speckled: Plague-spotted. Cf. Horace’s ^^Maculosum 
nefas’^ {Odes, iv, 5,22) and Shakspere’s spotted and incon- 
stant man” {Midsummer Night's Dream, i, i, 110). 

141, 142. An allusion to the story of Astraea (the star- 
maiden), the goddess of justice in the golden age, who at the 
end of that period was translated to the stars, and who, accord- 
ing to the ancient myth, was to return to earth with the return 
of the golden age. The application of the myth to the coming 
of the Messiah is one of the happiest uses of classic lore in the 
poem. 

143. Orbit in a rainbow, etc.: In the first edition this line 
read: 

*^Th’ enameld arras of the rainbow wearing.” 

146. With radiant feet, etc.: Like the descending angels 
in old pictures, with trailing clouds, bright or silvery in sub- 
stance, as if made of some rich tissue. 

154. Compare John, xvii, 22. 

155. Ychained : The ?/ is a corruption of the prefix ge of 

the past participle in Anglo-Saxon and modern German. So 
yclept, U Allegro, 12. , 

157-159. See Exodus, xix, 16-19. 

164. See 1 Thessalonians, iv, 16, 17. 

168. Old Dragon : See Revelations, xx, 2; xii, 4 and 9. 

169. Straiter: Narrower. Cf. Matthew, vii, 14: ^‘Strait is 
the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.” 

172. Swinges: Lashes. In the original edition speUed 
swindges. 

173. In stanzas XIX-XXVI the overthrow of the pagan 
religions by the coming of Christ is described. There was a 
tradition among the early Christians that this took place 


124 


MILTON'S POEMS 


suddenly at the birth of Christ. To make his description both 
vivid and comprehensive, Milton names some of the familiar 
deities of Greek, Roman, Syrian, and Egyptian mythologies. 
Rolfe cites the Glosse on Spenser’s Shepherd's Calendar (May)^ 
in which the story from Plutarch’s discourse On the Ceasing 
of Oracles is given, according to which certain mariners while 
sailing from Italy to Cyprus, at about the time of Christ’s 
agony, heard a cry coming over the sea, Great Pan is dead 
‘^wherewithal! there was heard suche piteous outcryes, and 
dreadfull shriking, as has not bene the like”; and “at that 
time, as he sayth, all Oracles surceased, and enchanted spirits, 
that were wont to delude the people, thenceforth held theyr 
peace.” See De Quincey’s essay on The Pagan Oracles and Mrs. 
Browning’s poem. The Dead Pan. 

178. Steep of Delphos: The most famous oracle of the 
Greeks was in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, or Delphos, 
among the steep cliffs of Mount Parnassus. In the innermost 
part of the temple (the cell, or cella), from a cleft in the rock 
arose a strange intoxicating vapor. Over this cleft was seated 
on a tripod the priestess, or Pythia, who in a trance induced 
by the rising vapor delivered the answers of the oracle. 

The hollow shriek is a resounding, ghostlike shriek. 

184. A voice of weeping, etc. : See Isaiah, Ixv, 19; Jeremiah, 
xxxi, 15. 

185. Poplar pale : The white poplar. 

186. Parting genius : Departing genius. So “parting day” 
in Gray’s Elegy. The genii were guardian spirits of persons 
and localities. 

188. Nymphs: The nymphs were inferior divinities of 
nature, dwelling in forests and beside springs and streams. 
The nymphs of rivers and springs are Naiads ; the nymphs of 
the hills are Oreads, and those of the groves and forests are 
Dryads. Cf. II Penseroso, 138. 

191. Lars and Lemures : In Roman religion the Lares were 
household gods, the good spirits of ancestors, to whom daily 
prayers were offered. The Lemures were evil spirits, wandering 


NOTES 


125 


ghosts, that were expelled from the home by ceremonial rites 
performed yearly. 

194. Flamens : Priests who attended the altars of particular 
gods. Quaint is peculiar, elaborate. 

195. The chill marble seems to sweat : A prodigy frequently 
mentioned by ancient authors. Cf. Vergil’s Georgies, i, 480. 
Thurber quotes from Cicero’s De Divinatione : ^^It was re- 
ported to the senate that it had rained blood, that the river 
Atratus had even flowed with blood, and that the statues of 
the gods had sweat.” 

197. Peor and Baalim : Phoenician deities. Baalim is the 
plural of Baal, thus representing the deity in his various mani- 
festations; as Jupiter was worshiped under various names 
among Greeks and Romans. Cf. Numbers, xxv, 18; xxxi, 16; 
Joshua, xxii, 17. The deities mentioned in this and the two 
following stanzas are described va Paradise Lost, i, 392-492. 

199. Twice-battered god of Palestine : Dagon, the national 
god of the Philistines. See 1 Samuel, v, 3, 4. 

200. Mooned Ashtaroth : The principal female deity of the 
Phoenicians, goddess of the moon. The form Ashtaroth is really 
the plural of Ashtoreth. Cf. Paradise Lost, i, 438; 1 Kings, xi, 
33; Judges, x, 6. In Selden’s De Diis Syriis, this goddess is 
called ‘^regina coeli” and mater deum,” which seems to have 
suggested 1. 201. 

202. Lybic Hammon : The Lybian, and later the Egyptian, 
god Ammon, or Jupiter Ammon, represented with the horns of 
a ram. It was the oracle of this deity that Alexander con- 
sulted. 

204. Thammuz: A Syrian god, who was killed by a wild 
boar, and yearly mourned by women. Cf. Ezekiel, viii, 14: 
‘^Then he brought me to the gate of the Lord’s house which 
was toward the north, and, behold, there sat women weeping for 
Tammuz.” Cf. Paradise Lost, i, 446. This myth was finally 
identified with that of Adonis, whose similar death was mourned 
by Aphrodite. See Classical Dictionary. 

205. Moloch: See Milton’s description. Paradise Lost, i, 


126 


MILTON'S POEMS 


392-396. Cf. 1 Kings, xi, 7; 2 Kings, xxiii, 10; Jeremiah, 
vii, 31. Browne quotes from Sandys’s Travels, a popular book 
of Milton’s time, the description of the valley of Tophet: 
“Therein the Hebrews sacrificed their children to Moloch, an 
idol of brass, having the head of a calf, the rest of a kingly 
figure with arms extended to receive the miserable sacrifice 
seared to death with his burning embracements. For the idol 
was hollow within, and filled with fire; and lest their lamentable 
shrieks should sad the heart of their parents, the priests of 
Moloch did deaf their ears with the continual clang of trumpets 
and timbrels.” 

212, 213. Isis and Orus, etc.: Orus, or Horus, was the 
Egyptian sun-god. Osiris was the Nile-god, and Isis, his wife, 
was goddess of the earth. Anubis, the son of Osiris, was 
represented with the head of a jackal, or dog-ape. Typhon, 
the brother of Osiris, contrived to shut him up in a chest, 
which he threw into the Nile. The ever-renewed incarnation 
of Osiris was in the form of the bull Apis. 

215. Unshowered: Because there is little or no rain in 
Egypt. 

214. Memphian grove or green : The fields about Memphis, 
in Egypt. At Memphis the sacred bull Apis was kept with 
ceremonious care. 

220. Sable-stoled : Black-robed. The stola was the tunic, 
or robe, worn by a Roman lady. But stole was also used for 
scarf or veil, hence the ecclesiastical stole. Cf. II Penseroso, 35. 

223. Eyn: The old plural of eye, here used for the rhyme. 

226. Typhon : The Greek name of Set or Suti, the brother 
and enemy of Osiris. He was sometimes worshiped in the 
form of a crocodile. 

Not has the force of not even. 

227, 228. Some editors suggest comparison with the feat of 
the infant Hercules, strangling serpents in his cradle. 

231. Orient: Eastern. The sun in bed is the rising sun. 

232-234. It was popular belief that ghosts trooped back to 
their confines at the crowing of the cock, or the first approach 


NOTES 


127 


of dawn. Cf. Hamlet, i, i, 152, and Midsummer Night's Dream, 
iii, 2, 380: 

“And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger, 

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, 
Troop home to churchyards.” 

234. Fettered ghost: They are bound underground, with 
the limited liberty of the night. 

His several grave is his own, particular grave. 

235. Fays: The Fays are fairy folk, “the pert faeries and 
the dapper elves” of Comus, 118. 

236. Night-steeds: Cf. Comus, 553: 

“The drowsy frighted steeds 
That draw the litter of close-curtained sleep.” 

Masson thinks the reference is to nightmares, or night-hags, 
and cites Paradise Lost, ii, 662. 

236. Their moon-loved maze : Cf. Drake’s Culprit Fay: 

“Elf of eve, and starry fay! 

Ye that love the moon’s soft light.” 

240. Youngest-teemed : Last born, i. e., the Star of Beth- 
lehem. 

241. Hath fixed, etc.: Has come to rest over the stable. 
“So, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them 
till it came and stood over where the young child was.” 

243. Courtly stable : Because it is now the palace of the new 
king. 

244. Bright-harnessed : With bright armor. Harness origi- 
nally meant armor or implements of war. Cf. Macbeth, v, 5, 52; 
Exodus, xiii, 18. 


L’ALLEGRO 

1. Melancholy: The word here must be distinguished from 
the ^^divinest Melancholy” of II Penseroso, 1. 12. Here it is 
the “cold, dry, wretched, saturnine humor” of the old writers, 
which produces dejection, gloom, and madness. Milton makes 


128 


MlLTON^S POEMS 


a poetic and playful use of the pseudo-scientific associations 
of the word, so extensively elaborated by Burton. 

2. Cerberus: The three-headed dog, doorkeeper at the en- 
trance to the infernal regions. Dante describes him {InfernOj 
vi) as ^^a beast cruel and monstrous, with three throats,” and 
with vermilion eyes, and a greasy and black beard, and a 
big belly, and hands armed with claws.” The genealogy here is 
Milton’s invention, the real husband of Night being Erebus; like 
the classic poets, he made free use of the myths to suit his own 
purpose, sometimes creating a new myth, as in 11. 18-24 below. 

3. Stygian cave : An appropriate place for the birth of 
Melancholy, the poet thinks, is the den of Cerberus (Vergil’s 
^neid, vi, 418), on the bank of the river Styx, one of the four 
rivers of Hades, Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate” 
{Paradise Lost, ii, 577). 

4. Horrid : Used in its original sense of bristly, hence 
terrifying; L. horridus. Note the imitative purpose in this verse. 

5. Uncouth: Literally unknown, from the. Anglo-Saxon 
cunnan, to know, ^^ken”; hence strange, wild, uncanny, for- 
bidding. 

6. Jealous wings: These words complete the metaphor 
beginning with brooding.” A brooding fowl is jealous of 
intruders. 

7. Night-raven: Milton has been taken to task for making 
the raven a night bird, confusing it, perhaps, with the night- 
heron. But Shakspere uses the same word {Much Ado, ii, 
3,84), and Milton w^as not more particular about his natural 
history. The raven is the bird of ill-omen, gloom, and despair 
{Macbeth, i, 5), and naturally, only such a bird ^^sings” in the 
region of Melancholy’s birthplace. 

8. Low-browed: Overhanging, beetle-browed. Ragged, in 
the next line, is a common term with Shakspere: ‘^ragged 
prison walls” {Richard II., v, 5); Unto a ragged, fearful-hang- 
ing rock” {Two Gentlemen of Verona, i, 2 , 21). Did Milton 
possibly have in mind the wild locks of the classical Furies, 
the Dirse, daughters of Night? 


NOTES 


129 


10. Cimmerian: The Cimmerians were a mythical people 
who, according to Homer {Odyssey, xi, 14) dwelt somewhere in 
the region of the Black Sea in perpetual darkness (hence, 
Crimea). Odysseus and his companions reached earth’s 
limits, the deep stream of the ocean, where the Cimmerian 
people’s land and city lie, wrapt in a fog and cloud. Never on 
them does the shining sun look down with his beams, as he 
goes up the starry sky, but deadly night is spread abroad over 
these hapless men’' (Palmer’s version). See Ovid, Meta- 
morphoses, xi, 592. Burton has ‘^Cimmerian darkness” in the 
Anatomy of Melancholy. 

11. The movement of the verse now suddenly and ap- 
propriately changes from the heavy, slow measures of the 
imprecation to the light, tripping measures of ^^heart-easing 
Mirth.” 

Fair and free is a somewhat stereotyped phrase of the old 
ballads, as in Sir Eglamour: *^The erle’s daughter fair and 
free.” 

12. Yclept: Called; past participle of the A.-S. verb clipian. 
The y is the decayed ge, the original prefix of the participle, 
as in German. So “ychained” in the Hymn on the Nativity. 
Hamlet says: ^^They clepe us drunkards” {Hamlet, i, 4). 

Euphrosyne is Cheerfulness, one of the three Graces, who 
presided over the beauties and amenities, the charities of life, 
hence called by the Greeks Charites. The sister graces are 
Thalia (Bloom) and Aglaia (Brightness). See Horace’s Odes, 
i, 4 , 6. The graces, according to Hesiod, were the daughters 
of Zeus and Eurynome. The parentage given in the text is 
traced to the commentary of Servius on Vergil’s ASneid, i, 720. 

14. At a birth: The a in this expression is the old an, or 
one. 

17. As some sager sing : These words playfully conceal the 
fact that the poet himself invents the following genealogy. 
His refined sense of fitness is intolerant of the coarser origin 
of the graces, as the offspring of Love and Wine, so he gives 
them the more beautiful and appropriate parentage of Zephyr, 


130 


MILTON'S POEMS 


the warm west wind of spring, and Aurora, goddess of the 
dawn. 

20. A-Maying: The a here, as in a-fishing, a-going, a-field, 
etc., is the weakened form of the preposition on. The allusion 
is to the May-day sports and games, celebrated throughout 
English poetry. See Herrick’s Corinna's Going a-Maying. 

Once is the “once upon a time of the story-tellers. 

22. Cf. Taming of the Shrew, ii, i, 174: “As morning roses 
newly washed with dew.” 

24. Cf. Anatomy of Melancholy, hi, 2 , 3: 

“That was so fine, so fair, so blithe, so debonair.’^ 

Also hi, 2, 5: “I am blithe and buxom, young and lusty, but 
I have never a suitor.” Cf. also Shakspere’s Pericles, Prologue: 
“So buxom, blithe, and full of face.” 

Buxom originally meant yielding, obedient (A.-S. hugan, to 
bow); in this sense it occurs in Paradise Lost, ii, 842, and v, 270. 
Then it came to mean lively, cheerful, its meaning here. 
Debonair is the French de bonne air, of pleasant manners, gay 
and light-hearted. “A favorite word with the old romancers ” 
(Masson). 

27. Quips and cranks : Lyly, in Alexander and Campaspe, iii, 
2, defines quip as “a short saying of a sharp wit, with a bitter 
sense in a sweet word.” Crank is an odd turn or twist of speech, 
a humorous and more or less fantastic conceit. 

28. Cf. Anatomy of Melancholy, iii, 2 , 2: 

“With becks and nods he first began 
To try the wench’s mind.” 

29. Hebe : The goddess of youth, and cup-bearer to the 
gods of Olympus. 

33. Come, and trip it: Cf. Tempest, iv, i,45: “Each one 
tripping on his toe.” 

36. Sweet Liberty: The love of liberty is supposed to be 
specially characteristic of those dwelling among mountains. 
Cf. Wordsworth’s sonnet. Thought of a Briton on the Subjuga- 
tion of Switzerland. Later this became an earnest theme with 


NOTES 


131 


Milton, and it will be noted that he here gives to the nymph 
the place of honor, “in thy right hand.” 

38. Crew : Compare the use of this word here with that of 
Paradise Regained, i, 107: 

“his words impression left 
Of much amazement to the infernal crew.” 

40. Unreproved : Unreprovable, innocent; like unavoided, 
unavoidable {Richard III., iv, 4 , 217); unenchanted, not to be 
enchanted. 

41. This beautiful lark passage should be compared with 
the lark poems of other English poets, especially Shakspere’s 
song, “Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings ” (Cymbeline, 
ii, 2 ), Shelley’s To a Skylark, and Wordsworth’s To a Skylark, 
“Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!” 

44. Cf. Much Ado About Nothing v, 3 , 27: 

“Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray.” 

45-48. This passage has given much trouble. Some think it is 
the lark who comes to “ bid good morrow.” But this interpreta- 
tion conflicts with grammar, as well as with the habits of the 
bird. Others, including Masson, think that U Allegro is 
walking in the early morning and returns to his own cottage 
window to bid good morning to the inmates just astir. Still 
others, including the editor of the Clarendon Press edition, 
think that U Allegro, awakened by the lark’s song, throws 
open his casement and salutes the joyous outdoor life that 
is in sharp contrast with the dark interior, haunted by the 
melancholy shadows of “dull night.” He then goes out to 
enjoy the characteristic scenes of early morning. This is the 
most consistent interpretation, making the thought harmonize 
with what immediately precedes and what follows. The 
verb to come is then in the same construction as to live and to 
hear, after admit me, 1. 38. It is objected that the poet “would 
hardly use come if going to the window to bid good morrow 
to anybody or anything outside” (Rolfe). But why not? 
Would go be any better poetically? 

45. In spite of sorrow : There seems to be a hint here of 


132 


MILTON^S POEMS 


the character II Penseroso, who is oft seen in night’s ^^pale 
career, Till civil-suited Morn appear.” The word sorrow must 
be understood generically; it is the mental atmosphere of night 
in sharp contrast with that of morning. Some lines from 
Sylvester’s Du Bartas, with which Milton was familiar, have a 
significant bearing upon this passage: 

^‘The cheerful birds, chirping him sweet good morrow, 
With nature’s music do beguile his sorrow. ” 

Also this couplet: 

Cease, sweet chantecleere, 

To bid good morrow.” 

48. Eglantine : The eglantine is the same as sweetbrier, 
and is not twisted. So it has been suggested that the poet had 
in mind the honeysuckle. His picture of the vine-covered 
window is true, though his botany be faulty. 

53. Oft listening: Notice the varied method of introducing 
the pictures, or '^pleasures,” in 1. 49, while, and in 1. 57, some- 
time walking. The participles are in agreement with U Allegro 
understood. 

55. Hoar hill: The hill is white with frost in the early 
morning. Or possibly gray, as dimly seen in the morning mists. 

56. High wood: The wood is clear of underbrush, and the 
tall tree trunks are clearly seen. 

57. Not unseen: The counterpart in II Penseroso, 1. 65, 
is walk unseen.” Which poem was probably written first? 
In Burton’s Abstract is the suggestive line, with the same rhyme: 

Unheard, unsought for, or unseen.” 

59. Right against, etc.: Toward the sunrise. Cf. Mid- 
summer Night's Dream, iii, 2: 

*^Even till the Eastern gate, all fiery-red.” 

60. State: Stately progress through the sky. Note the 
exquisite harmony of verse movement and thought. 

62. In thousand liveries dight : The clouds, as servants of the 
sun, are decked, or arrayed, in his splendidly colored liveries. 

67. Tells his tale : Counts his sheep as they go forth to 


NOTES 


133 


pasture from the sheepfold. Cf. the ^Hale of the bricks,” 
Exodus^ V, 8. Dryden has ^Hhe tale of all the lambs.” The 
original meaning of tell (Anglo-Saxon tellan) is to count, as to 
^Hell one’s beads.” The shepherds would hardly be telling 
stories, or making love (as many would interpret the line) so 
early in the morning — certainly not every shepherd! The 
word every suggests the universal custom, so familiar in England. 

69. Straight: Straightway, as in Hamlet^ ii, 2: We’ll 
have a speech straight.” 

70. Landskip: This spelling carries the word back to the 
Anglo-Saxon landscipe. The suffix scipe, scape, is the modern 
ship, as in friendship; A.-S. scapan, to shape. 

71. Fallows gray: Land is said to lie fallow when it is 
plowed and left unseeded for a season. Hence the appropri- 
ateness of the word in its original meaning, A.-S. fealu, yellow, 
as still in fallow deer. Milton’s use extends the word to any 
neglected land, which might be gray with decaying stubble. 

Meaning of lawn in this line? See Hymn on the Nativity, 80, 
and note. 

75. Daisies pied : Cf. Lovers Labor^s Lost, v, 2: 

“When daisies pied and violets blue.” 

77. Towers and battlements: Perhaps Windsor Castle was 
in the poet’s mind, as he must have seen it often, four miles 
away, when walking about Horton. It must not be assumed, 
however, that all his pictures are taken from the Horton land- 
scape; for example, there were no mountains there. 

79. Lies: Resides, as frequently in the old writers. See 
2 Henry IV., iii, 2, and Merry Wives of Windsor, ii, 2. 

80. Cynosure : The center of attraction. The name is 
applied to the polestar, which forms the tip of the tail, in the 
constellation of the Little Bear, the guide of the ancient 
mariners. Literally, dog’s-tail, the constellation having first 
been likened to a dog. Cf. Comus, 341. 

83. Corydon, Thyrsis, Phillis (86), Thestylis (88) : Conven- 
tional names from the pastoral poetry of the Greeks and 


134 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Romans. Milton’s fondness, at this period, for dealing with 
nature in this classical manner (Cf. Lycidas and Comus) led 
Dry den to remark that the poet saw nature ^ through the 
spectacles of books.” 

87. Bower: This word, in the sense of cottage or any 
humble dwelling, became one of the “stock words” of poetry 
during the succeeding century, “foolishly repeated by bad 
poets,” as Wordsworth said. 

91. Secure : Used in its original sense, free from care; Latin, 
sine cura. The murder of Hamlet’s father was during his 
“secure hour.” 

92. Upland hamlets: In contrast to “towered cities,” 117. 
Upland, remote from towns, hence rustic, countrified. 

93. Such sports as these were prohibited by the Puritans. 
Cf. Ben Jonson’s Alchemist, iii, 2 : “Bells are profane; a tune 
may be religious.” 

94. Rebeck: A kind of fiddle, with three or four strings. 

96. Chequered shade : As so often, Shakspere was before 
Milton in the use of this charming picture. Cf. Titus Androni- 
cus, ii, 3 , 15: 

“The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind 
And make a chequered shadow on the ground.” 

97. And young and old, etc.: In the same construction as 
many a youth, after rehecks sound. Come is the past parti- 
ciple. 

98. Sunshine holiday: Repeated in Comus, 1. 959. Cf. 
“sunshine days,” Richard II., iv, i, 221. 

100. Spicy nut-brown ale : In Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess 
it is “the spiced wassail-bowl.” It was ale warmed, sweetened, 
and spiced, with roasted crab apples in it. Cf. Midsummer 
Night's Dream, ii, i, 46. 

102 . Faery Mab : See Mercutio’s description of Mab in 
Romeo and Juliet, i, 4 , 53-95; also the opening passages of 
Shelley’s Queen Mob. 

Junkets are a kind of cream cheese, or sweetened and flavored 
curds, so called from the rushes (It. giuncata) in which they 


NOTES 


135 


were wrapped. The word may be taken in the sense of sweet- 
meats, rural dainties in general. 

Notice that eat, though preterit, must rhyme with feat, a 
common enough provincial pronunciation yet. 

103, 104. She was pinched, etc. : Different members of the 
company, she ... he, this one and that one, are telling their 
experiences. See Ben Jonson's description of Mab in The 
Satyr: 

‘^This is Mab, the Mistress Faery, 

That doth nightly rob the dairy. . . 

She that pinches country wenches. 

If they rub not clean their benches.” 

See also Merry Wives of Windsor, v, 5, 48; and Drayton’s 
Nymphidia. Consult Keightley’s Fairy Mythology. 

104, 105. A semicolon after led would clear the sense of these 
lines, he being understood as the subject. One tells how she 
was punished by the fairies, another tells how he was led into 
trouble by Jack-o’-Lantern, and another tells the story of the 
drudging goblin. 

104. Friar’s lantern: Milton seems to confuse Friar Rush, 
a familiar character of folklore, with Jack-o’-Lantern, or 
Will-o’-the-Wisp, the ignis fatuus, a strange light seen over 
marshy places, by which the devil was supposed to lead people 
astray. But Milton probably followed Burton’s confused 
classification of evil spirits. Anatomy, i, 2 , 1. Scott {Marmion, 
iv, 1) seems to have followed Milton: 

“Better we had through mire and bush 
Been lantern-led by Friar Rush.” 

105. Drudging goblin : “That knavish sprite called Robin 
Goodfellow . . . That frights the maidens of the village ry” 
{Midsummer Night's Dream, ii, 1). Burton says: “Some put 
our fairies into this rank [terrestrial devils], which have been 
in former times adored with much superstition, with sweeping 
their houses, and setting of a pail of clean water, good victuals, 
and the like, and then they should not be pinched, but find 
money in their shoes, and be fortunate in their enterprises. . . . 


136 


MILTON^S POEMS 


A bigger kind there is of them called with us Hobgoblins, and 
Robin Goodfellows, that would in those superstitious times 
grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of 
drudgery work . . . these have several names in several 
places; we commonly call them Pucks.” See Puck’s descrip- 
tion of himself. Midsummer Night's Dream, ii, i, 40. 

110. Lubber fiend: Not much like Shakspere’s Puck, but, 
as Masson says, ^Hhe genuine uncultured Robin Goodfellow 
of the rustics themselves.” 

110. Lies him: The ethical dative; so ^^sits him down.” 
Piers Plowman has ^^went me to rest.” 

111 . Chimney’s length: Length of the fireplace. 

114. Ere the first cock: At the first crowing of the cock, 
^Hhat is the trumpet to the morn,” the power of ghosts and 
spirits ceased for the night, and they must back to their con- 
fines. See Hamlet, i, i, 150, and Comus, 432. 

117. At this point we may suppose that U Allegro goes to 
the city and there selects typical scenes for description; or we 
may suppose that he reenters his own cottage and spends the 
evening in reading and poetic contemplation. Objections to 
either interpretation may be found, but they are not serious, 
if proper freedom is given to the imagination. The second 
supposition seems the more consistent with the text; high 
triumphs were not evening amusements, and the courts of 
•,^love, alluded to in 121 , 122 , could exist for Milton only in 
books. It also corresponds better to the evening occupations 
of II Penseroso, making the contrast between the kinds of 
reading selected by the two characters. 

120. Weeds of peace : The old meaning of weeds is garments, 
as ^^widow’s weeds.” Cf. Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3 , 239: 
“To see great Hector in his weeds of peace.” 

Triumphs are grand shows, processions, and tournaments. 
See Bacon’s Essay on Masks and Triumphs. 

121 . Store: A large number. Sidney has “store of faire 
ladies,” and Spenser has “store of vermeil roses.” 

122 . Rain influence : The word influence is here used in its 


NOTES 


137 


old astrological sense. The rays, or glances, or aspects of 
the stars, flowing down upon men, were believed to exercise 
a mysterious power over men’s fortunes. See Hymn on the 
Nativity, 71; Comus, 336; Paradise Lost, iv, 669; vii, 375; 
ix, 107. 

123. Of wit or arms : In the days of romance and chivalry, 
at the contests of arms, or tournaments, and at the contests 
of wit, or parliaments of love, the ladies adjudged the prizes, 
and there was masterful rivalry to win the grace, or “favor,’’ of 
some high-born beauty. 

125-128. A masque was often presented in honor of a marriage, 
in which Hymen, the god of marriage, would naturally assume 
a leading part. In the introduction to Ben Jonson’s Hymencei, 
the appearance of the god at these festivities is described: “In 
a saffron-colored robe, his under vestures white, his socks 
yellow, a yellow veil of silk on his left arm, his head crowned 
with roses and marjoram, in his right hand a torch of pine 
tree.” The Elizabethan age delighted in gorgeous revelries. 
Cf. Love's Labor's Lost, v, 1, 117: “The king would have me 
present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostenta- 
tion, or show, or pageant, or antic, or firework.” 

132. Jonson’s learned sock: Ben Jonson was the most 
learned of the Elizabethan dramatists in the knowledge of 
books, and often made his dramas heavy with a pedantic 
profusion of classical lore. He was living when this line was 
written. The sock, a low-heeled shoe {soccus), was worn on the 
ancient stage in comedy, and the buskin, a high-heeled shoe 
(cothurnus), in tragedy; hence the words are symbolic of the 
two forms of drama. Jonson has, “Or when thy socks were 
on,” in the verses prefixed to the Shakspere Folio of 1623. 

133. Sweetest Shakspere : It is narrow criticism that sees 
in this couplet only inadequate and eccentric characteriza- 
tion of Shakspere. Milton was selecting one phase of Shak- 
spere’ s art, the spontaneous and fluent artlessness of the 
comedies, as in As You Like It; and he doubtless had in mind 
the contrast to the heavy art of Jonson’s comedies. That 


138 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Milton understood the full sweep of Shakspere’s power is 
shown in his Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet, W, 
Shakspere. 

It must be remembered that Fancy, in Fancy’s child,” was 
equivalent to imagination. 

135. Eating cares : Possibly a memory of Horace’s mordaces 
sollicitudines {Odes, i, i 8 , 4), or curas edaces {Odes, ii, ii, 18). 

136. Lydian airs: The Greeks are believed to have had 
three styles, or modes,” of music, the Dorian, the Phrygian, 
and the Lydian; the first was serious and stately, the second 
loud and lively, the third sweet and tender. Cf. Dryden’s 
Alexander's Feast, 97: ‘^Softly sweet, in Lydian measures.” 

138. Meeting soul: ^‘The soul, in its eagerness, goes forth 
to meet and welcome the music” (Thurber). 

On the rhyme verse — pierce, Browne says, Perhaps pierce was 
once pronounced perse, retaining its French form from perger." 
The proper name Pierce was formerly pronounced Purse. The 
same rhyme occurs in ^4^ a Solemn Music, 4. Shakspere has 
the rhyme pierce — rehearse {Richard II., v, 3 , 127) and puns 
upon Percy and pierce, 1 Henry IV., v, 3 , 59. 

139. Bout: Fold or turn. The return or repetition of 
^ certain musical phrases. 

141. Wanton heed, etc.: The musician’s art that conceals 
art. ‘^The adjectives describe the appearance, the nouns the 
reality” (Browne). 

145. That : So that; as often in the older poets. 

146. Golden slumber: Justify the adjective golden. Cf. 
Romeo and Juliet, ii, 3 , 38; 1 Henry IV., ii, 3 , 44; Richard III., 
iv, I, 84. 

147. Elysian flowers: The Elysian fields, filled with the 
bloom of the asphodel, were the abode of the blessed after 
death. Cf. Paradise Lost, iii, 358-361. 

149. Quite : Entirely; opposed to half regained in the next 
line. 

Orpheus, the marvelous musician, sought his wife, Eurydice, 
in Hades, and so charmed Pluto with his music that he agreed 


NOTES 


139 


to release her on the condition that Orpheus should not look 
at her until they had reached the upper world; but Orpheus 
turned too soon, and she was lost to him again. Cf. II Penseroso, 
105; Lycidas, 58. Some of the many allusions to the Orpheus 
myth in English poetry should be looked up and compared 
with Milton’s exquisite version. Cf. Pope’s Ode on St. Cecilia's 
Day, Matthew Arnold’s Memorial Verses, Dry den’s Song for 
St. Cecilia's Day, and the Song in King Henry VIII, iii, i, 3. 

151-152. Compare the last lines of Marlowe’s ‘‘ The Passionate 
Shepherd to his Love 

^^If these delights thy mind may move, 

Then live with me and be my Love.’’ 


IL PENSEROSO 

1-30. The first thirty lines should be compared with the 
first twenty-four of U Allegro with respect to the parallelisms, 
which Milton so carefully arranged. ‘^So closely is the one 
poem framed on the model of the other,” says Masson, “that 
it would be impossible to say, on mere internal evidence, which 
was written first.” 

1. Cf. Sylvester’s Du Bartas: 

“Hence, hence, false pleasures, momentary joys, 

Mock us no more with your illuding toys.” 

2. Without father: “And therefore ^all mother,’ as we 
say, or pure folly” (Rolfe). 

3. Bestead : Stand by one, assist, avail. 

4. Fixed mind : The serious mind, with firmly established 
and high purpose; the antithesis of the empty, “idle brain.” 

6. Fond: Foolish, as generally in the old poets. Cf. King 
Lear, iv, 7, 60: “I am a very foolish fond old man.” 

6-10. Curiously similar to this passage are some lines in 
Sylvester’s Du Bartas: 


140 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Confusedly about the silent bed 

Fantastic swarms of dreams were hovered . . . 

They make no noise, but right resemble may 
Th’ unnumbered moats which in the sun do play.’’ 

Cf. Chaucer’s Wife of Bath's Tale, 868: 

“As thik as motis in the sonne-beem.” 

10. Pensioners : Paid courtiers; like the famous guard that 
served Queen Elizabeth, composed of handsome gentlemen 
chosen from the finest families of the realm. Cf. Midsummer 
Night's Dream, ii. i, 10. Morpheus is the god of sleep. 

12. Divinest Melancholy: We must keep in mind that in 
this poem Melancholy is simply the pensive, thoughtful mood. 

14. To hit the sense, etc.: Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, ii, 2 , 
207: 

“A strange invisible perfume hits the sense.” 

17. Esteem : Used in its first meaning, estimation or opinion. 

18. Memnon’s sister: Memnon, king of Ethiopia, was an 
ally of the Trojans and was slain by Achilles. He was famed 
for his beauty and prowess, “black but comely,’’ says Homer 
{Odyssey, xi, 522), and Milton assumes that his sister, Hemera, 
was equally beautiful. 

19. Starred Ethiop queen: Cassiopeia, wife of Cepheus, 
king of Ethiopia, and mother of Andromeda. She boasted 
that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, and the offended 
“powers” demanded that Andromeda should be sacrificed to 
a sea monster, from which she was rescued by Perseus. After 
death Cassiopeia was transformed into the constellation now 
bearing her name; hence “starred.” 

23. Vesta : Goddess of the domestic hearth and of purity. 
Milton invents a fitting genealogy for Melancholy, as he did for 
Mirth. Why he chose Vesta is an interesting query. Upon 
this Masson says: “One remembers that Vesta was the goddess 
of the sacred eternal fire that could be tended only by vowed 
virginity; and here one is on the track of a peculiarly Miltonic 
idea. See Comus, 783-789.” 

24. Solitary Saturn: Saturn, the Greek Chronos (Time), 


NOTES 


141 


was father of the gods, reigning alone, and even devouring his 
own offspring. There is a subtle significance in this genealogy 
of Melancholy, if one can but find it. Browne thinks the poet 
means that Melancholy is ^Hhe offspring of Retirement and 
Culture.” The student should consult the dictionaries of 
classical mythology for full accounts of Saturn and Vesta, and 
should trace the origin and meaning of the word Saturnine. 

25. Saturn^s reign: The ^‘golden age” of the world, ac- 
cording to the Latin poets, the age of ideal simplicity, happiness, 
and innocence. 

29. Woody Ida : Mount Ida in Crete, elsewhere associated 
by Milton with Saturn and Jove. See Paradise Lost, i, 515. 

30. Finally Jove rebelled and usurped the throne of his 
father, Saturn. For the solitude of Saturn after this event, see 
the opening of Keats’s Hyperion. 

33. Grain: Color, probably dark purple. Small insects 
like the cochineal, from which dyes are obtained, have a grain- 
like appearance when dried. Grain of Sarra,” Paradise Lost, 
"^xi, 242, is purple of Tyre. 

35. Stole of cypress lawn : A scarf, or veil, of crape. Cypress 
was a thin fabric, supposed to have been first made in Cyprus, 
hence often called Cyprus. “Cobweb lawn, or the very finest 

.lawn," is often mentioned with Cyprus” (Nares). Cf. Winter's 
Tale, iv, 4, 222: “Cypress black as e’er was crow.” Cf. Web- 
ster’s Malcontent, iii, 1: “Why, dost think I cannot mourn, 
unles I wear my hat in cipres, like an alderman’s heir? ” 

36. Decent: In the Horatian sense of comely, beautiful 
(Horace, Odes, iii, 27, 53: decentes malas). 

39. Commercing : Communing. 

40. Rapt: Enraptured. Latin raptus, seized. Cf. Cym- 
heline, i, 6, 51: “What, dear sir, thus raps you?” 

42. Forget thyself to marble : Milton had already used this 
idea in the Epitaph on Shakspere: “Dost make us marble 
with too much conceiving.” 

44. As fast : As firmly on earth as before on the skies. 

46. Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet: The old idea 


142 


MILTON^S POEMS 


of asceticism as a means of attaining true spirituality. Words- 
worth puts it, not so loftily: Plain living and high think- 
ing.” 

48. About Jove’s altar sing : Possibly a memory of the open- 
ing lines of Hesiod’s Theogony, where the Muses are represented 
as dancing “with tender feet” around “the dark-colored 
fountain [Aganippe, the sacred fount of Helicon] and altar 
of the mighty son of Chronos” (Zeus, or Jove). 

50. See Bacon’s opinion of this form of cultured pleasure, in 
the essay Of Gardens: “It is the purest of human pleasures; 
it is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man.” Trim is 
suggestive of the artificial style of gardening then in vogue, 
lawns “kept finely shorn,” “little low hedges, round like welts,” 
“images cut out in juniper,” and “fair columns upon frames 
of carpenter’s work.” 

52-54. From Ezekiel, X. See Milton’s further use of the 
vision of Ezekiel in Paradise Lost, vi, 750-759. “A daring use 
of the vision,” says Masson; “Milton ventures to name one of 
the Cherubs that there guide the fiery wheelings of the throne.” 
Through contemplation one attains to the highest regions of 
spiritual vision and experience. Note that this word is 
rhythmically a word of five syllables. 

55-56. Bring the mute Silence along, whispering hist! a 
warning to continue mute, unless the nightingale chooses to 
sing. Although hist is commonly regarded as an imperative, it 
seems much simpler to supply bring from 1. 51, and understand 
the word in an adjectival or adverbial sense. 

Philomela (Greek, love-song), the daughter of King Pandion 
of Athens, was changed into a nightingale. Ovid’s Meta- 
morphoses, vi, 412. 

57. Plight : Manner, or strain. 

59. Cynthia: Diana, goddess of the moon (the Greek 
Artemis), so called from her birthplace, Mt. Cynthus in Delos. 
Cf. Spenser’s Faerie Queene, vii, 7, 50: 

“ Joves dearest darling, she was bred and nurst 
On Cynthus hill, whence she her name did take.” 


NOTES 


143 


The dragon yoke Milton borrows from Ceres for Diana’s use. 
In Shakspere, Night is drawn by dragons: Midsummer Night's 
Dream, iii, 2 , 379; Cymbdine, ii, 2 , 48. 

60. The accustomed oak : Cynthia, enchanted by the song, 
seems to pause over the oak where the bird is accustomed 
to sing. 

61-64. The song of the nightingale introduces the night- 
time pleasures of II Penseroso, as the song of the lark intro- , 
duces the daytime pleasures of U Allegro. The passage should 
be compared with other poets’ descriptions of the nightingale. 
See Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale; Coleridge’s The Nightingale; 
Wordsworth’s Nightingale and Stock-dove; Barnefield’s, The 
Nightingale (in The Golden Treasury). See also Paradise 
Lost, iv, 602 ; vii, 433 ; Comus, 234, and the sonnet, To the 
Nightingale. 

65. Unseen: Because the not unseen of U Allegro, 57, is 
the more unnatural expression, it is argued that II Penseroso 
was written first, but the argument seems unnecessarily forced. 
As the poems are complemental, cross-stitched together from 
beginning to end, undoubtedly they were planned together and 
written together. 

67. Wandering moon: Cf. Midsummer Night's Dream, iv, 
I, 103: “Swifter than the wandering moon”; Horace’s “vaga 
luna” {Satires, i, 8). Browne suggests comparison with Sidney’s 
sonnet, “With how sad steps, O Moon.’’ 

68. Highest noon: The highest point of her course for the 
night, rather than “nearly full.” 

74. Curfew sound: The curfew bell (French couvre-feu, 
fire cover) rang at about nine o’clock, warning all householders 
to put out their fires, a custom as old in England as William 
the Conqueror. Sound would better be regarded as a v^rb, 
since curfew must be in agreement with the participle swinging. 

75. Some wide-watered shore: The word “some,’’ says 
Masson, “is a distinct intimation, if such were necessary, that 
the visual circumstance is ideal — that the Penseroso is not 
actually walking in any particular locality, but is imagining 


144 


MILTON^S POEMS 


himself here, there, and everywhere, at the bidding of his 
mood." The realistic interpreters have had a discouraging 
task in finding a wide-watered shore near Horton. 

78. Removed : Remote, retired. 

80. Cf. the “darkness visible" of Paradise Lost, i, 62-64. 

82-83. The night-watch went his rounds proclaiming the 
hour, warning the sleepers “of fire and candle," and occasionally 
• droning a prayer or “charm" for their security. !Cf. Herrick’s 
Bellman: 

“From noise of scare-fires rest ye free, 

From murder, Benedicite! 

From all mischances that may fright 
Your pleasing slumbers in the night, 

Mercy secure ye all, and keep 

The goblin from ye, while ye sleep, ’ 

Past one o’clock, and almost two, 

My masters all, good day to you." 

87. Outwatch the Bear: As the constellation of the Bear 
does not set, to outwatch the Bear is to sit up all night. 

88. Thrice-great Hermes: Hermes Trismegistus (Greek, 
thrice-great Mercury), the name given by the Greeks to the 
fabled Egyptian philosopher Thot, whose reputed works upon 
philosophy are supposed to have been written by the Platonic 
philosophers at Alexandria in the fourth century. 

88-92. Unsphere the spirit of Plato, etc.: Call Plato from 
the “mansion" where his “spirit lives insphered" {Comus, 
1-3) , to^ explain his doctrine of immortality, presented in the 
Phcedo. This one does by study of his works. 

93-96. According to the ancient philosophers, there are 
four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. Plato discussed 
demons in his dialogues, but it was through mediaeval astrology 
and'alchemy that they were related by true “consent," natural 
harmony or agreement, to the plants and elements. Burton, 
in the Anatomy, i, 2 , 1, discourses extensively upon “Fiery 
spirits or devils, such as commonly work by blazing stars 
Aerial spirits . . . such as keep quarter most part in the air, 
cause many tempests, thunder, and lightnings, tear oaks, fire 


NOTES 


145 


steeples, etc.”; ^^Water-devils’’ who cause inundations, many 
times shipwrecks”; ^‘Terrestrial devils,” as Fauns, Wood- 
nymphs, Genii, Fairies, etc., “which as they are most conversant 
with men, so they do them most harm,” and “seven kinds of 
ethereal Spirits or Angels, according to the number of the seven 
planets. Saturnine, Jovial,' Martial, etc.” See Pope’s Rape of 
the Lock, i, 60-64. 

98. Sceptered pall: Royal robe, or with scepter and robe. 
Latin palla, an outer garment, often of rich material. The 
hero of classic tragedy must be of royal or noble rank. 

99-100. CEdipus, King of Thebes, Agamemnon, grandson of 
Pelops, and episodes of the Trojan war were the principal sub- 
jects of the great tragedies of Sophocles, iEschylus, and 
Euripides. 

101-102. These lines seem clearly to refer to Shakspere, 
thus being omplementary to lines 133, 134 of U Allegro. 

102. Buskined: Tragic. See U Allegro, 1. 132, and note. 

103. Sad Virgin: Melancholy, “sage and holy.” /Sad, as in 
1. 43, is serious. 

104. “O that we could recover the sacred hymns of the 
primitive semimythical Musseus of the Greeks, or the similar 
poems of his contemporary Orpheus” (Masson). 

105-108. See U Allegro, 145-150, and note. 

109. Him that left half told : Chaucer, whose Squire's Tale 
breaks off in the middle. Cambuscan, King of Tartary, had 
two sons, Camball and Algarsife, and a daughter, Canace. The 
King of India sent presents to the Tartar king and his daughter, 
a horse of brass (which would fly through the air with its rider, 
the “Enchanted Horse” of the Arabian Nights), a glass (the 
magic mirror of romance), and a virtuous ring (the miraculous 
virtue of which was to give the wearer the power of under- 
standing the language of birds and the medicinal properties 
of plants). Spenser continued the story in the Faerie Queene. 

112. Who: Of him who. That, in the next line, refers to 
Canace. 

116. Great bards beside, etc.: The allusion here is un- 


146 


MILTON'S POEMS 


doubtedly to Spenser, whose Faerie Queene is filled with the 
allegorical meaning so happily described in 1. 120. Tasso, 
Ariosto, and Boiardo may also have been in Milton’s mind, 
for he was an admirer of all of these great poets of romance and 
chivalry. 

118. Turneys: Touriiaments. These contests, with the 
trophies won, and enchanted forests, were stock material with 
the romantic poets. 

122. Civil-suited : Plain dress of the citizen as opposed to 
that of the court. See V Allegro, 60-62. Cf. Romeo and 
Juliet, hi, 2, 10: 

Come, civil night, 

Thou sober-suited matron all in black.” 

124. Attic boy: Cephalus, grandson of Cecrops, King of 
Athens. While hunting one day, Aurora, goddess of the dawn, 
stole him away from his good wife, Procris. Ovid’s Meta- 
morphoses, vii, 701. 

125. Kerchieft: A kerchief is properly a head-covering 
(French, couvre-chef) , hence hand-kerchief is a peculiar con- 
tradiction. Keep in mind the manner in which Morn appears 
in U Allegro. 

127. Still : Quiet, gentle. 

130. Minute-drops: Drops falling a minute apart. Cf. 

minute-guns. ' 

134. Sylvan: Sylvanus, god of woods and fields. Brown 
IS used in the original sense of dark or dusky. 

135. Monumental: Memorial^ old, telling of bygone 

years” (Masson). 

140. Profaner: The close covert is to Melancholy a hal- 
lowed retreat, and any intrusion from the blustering, joyous 
world would be a kind of profanation. 

141. Garish: Staring, glaring, gaudy. Cf. Romeo and 

Juliet, hi, 2 , 25: *^And pay no worship to the garish sun;” and 
Newman’s Lead, Kindly Light: loved the garish day.” 

142. Honeyed thigh: The bee carries pollen on his thigh, 
and honey in a sack; a pardonable mistake for a poet-naturalist 


NOTES 


147 


in an unscientific age. In Drayton’s Owl is the same mistake: 
“Each bee with honey laden to the thigh.” And likewise 
Vergil seems to have observed {Eclogues, i, 56). 

145. Consort: Companionship, other pleasing sounds of 
nature; or perhaps in the sense of concert, harmony. See 
Hymn on the Nativity, 132, and At a Solemn Music, 27. 

146. Dewy-feathered Sleep: The hyphen is sometimes 
omitted, and dewy then regarded as a “coequal epithet of 
sleep,” like “high embowed roof,” 1. 157, and “ drowsy frighted 
steeds,” Comus, 553. Milton has “the timely dew of sleep” 
(Paradise Lost, iv, 614), and Shakspere has “the golden dew 
of sleep” (Richard III, iv, i, 84) and “the honey-heavy dew 
of slumber” (Julius Ccesar, ii, i, 230). Professor Cook points 
out the epithet in the Anglo-Saxon Judith — “urigfethera,” the 
dewy- feathered (eagle). Morpheus had wings, according to the 
ancients, bat’s wings, some thought, eagle’s wings, as others 
thought. 

146-150. It is impossible to make out just what picture 
Milton intended to present in these lines. The sense seems to 
run thus: Let some mysterious dream, hovering near the wings 
of sleep and appearing in an airy stream of lifelike scenes, 
be softly laid upon my eyelids. It has been suggested, with 
some pertinency, that the poet had in mind some of the old 
pictures of angels with scrolls streaming about their wings. 
Editorial ingenuity has been much distressed to find a coherent 
interpretation of the passage (which, perhaps, was intended to 
have only the airy incoherency of dreams); for example: “It 
is possible to hold that the Dream’s wings are displayed (L e., 
reflected) in the airy stream, and that he waves at this reflec- 
tion” (!). Ben Jonson’s Song of Night, in the play The Vision 
of Delight, may have been sounding in Milton's memory, 
especially the line “Create of airy forms a stream.” 

154. Genius : Guardian spirit, as in Lycidas, 183. See 
the speech of the “Genius of the Wood,” Arcades, 44. 

155. Due feet: Feet in duty bound, as it were. 

156. Studious Cloister’s pale : The cloister of a cathedral 


148 


MILTON'S POEMS 


or college church was associated with study. Chaucer’s Monk 
thought it a hard duty: 

^^Upon a book in cloystre alway to powre.” 

Pale is the space inclosed by the covered arcades of the 
cloister. 

157. Embowed roof: The arched or vaulted ceiling of a 
Gothic church. 

158. Massy-proof : Massive, and therefore proof against the 
weight they sustain. Milton used massy eleven times in his 
poems, and Shakspere used it five times, and neither used 
massive. 

159. Storied windows richly dight: Windows richly deco- 
rated with Bible stories pictured in the stained glass. Cf. 
L' Allegro f 62. ^‘This whole magnificent passage [155-166] 
is a convincing proof of the high and lofty character of Milton’s 
Puritanism” (Trent). 

164. As may : Such as may. 

169. Hairy gown: Not the haircloth garment of penance, 
but the coarse, rough gown worn by monks and hermits. 

170. Spell of: Study. See Paradise Regained, iv, 385. 
The hermits were credited with a special knowledge of astrology 
and of the medicinal virtues of herbs. 

171. Shew — dew : The same rhyme occurs in Comus, 995-6. 

174. Prophetic strain: Superior and ripened wisdom, like 

that of an ancient prophet. 

175-176. In comparing these closing lines with the correspond- 
ing lines of U Allegro, it is commonly noted that the poet is 
less doubtful about the pleasures of Melancholy than about 
the delights of Mirth. This, however, is a rather fanciful 
inference. The difference between the conditionality of ^^give ” 
and of “if thou canst give” is hardly large enough to hang an 
argument upon. A more practical inference might be drawn 
from the exigency of a four-syllabled word to be dealt with 
in the same space. 


NOTES 


149 


COMUS 

The list of The Persons '' was printed in the first edition of 
the poems (1645), but not in the second (1673). The title 
Comus was never used by Milton, but was added by later 
editors as an eminently appropriate title. The “Chief Persons” 
mentioned are the sons and daughter of the Earl of Bridge- 
water. Lawes acted the part of the Attendant Spirit; who 
took the parts of Comus and Sabrina is not known. 

1. Mansion: Abiding place (Latin, manere, to abide). 
Cf. II Penseroso, 92. 

2. Shapes of bright aerial spirits: “An instance of the 
manner in which Milton endows spiritual beings with per- 
sonality without making them too distinct” (Bell). 

3. Insphered : Milton seems to have assigned the celestial 
beings to their proper spheres, thus disposing of them within 
the general system of the crystalline spheres that constituted 
the universe according to the Ptolemaic theory. See II Penseroso ^ 
88, and Hymn on the Nativity. 

4. In regions mild, etc. : So Homer describes the dwelling 
place of the gods {Odyssey, vi, 42): “It is not shaken by wind, 
nor ever is it wet with rain, nor doth the snow come near it, 
but everywhere the clear air spreads cloudless about it, and a 
white light floats over all.” 

Note that serene is accented on the first syllable, like en- 
throned in 1. 11 below, and perplexed, 1. 36. 

6. And : As not infrequently in Milton, the grammatical 
structure gets tangled in a long sentence. And should be a 
coordinate conjunction here, but it is not. 

7. Pestered : Clogged, encumbered; from the old meaning 
of the word, to shackle a horse in pasture. Pinfold is the 
pound- fold, or pound, where stray cattle are shut up. See 
SkeaCs Etymological Dictionary. 

8. Frail and feverish being: Compare Macbeth’s “After 
life’s fitful fever” (iii, 2 , 23) 


150 


MILTOWS POEMS 


9. Virtue : The whole length and breadth of meaning given 
by Milton to the word Virtue should be "arefully considered 
in studying this poem. 

10. After this mortal change : After the change of thk mor^l 
existence for immortality. It may mean, however, after this 
changing state of mortal life, an interpretation that makes the 
use of this less questionable. 

11. Cf. Revelation, iv, 4: ‘^And round about the throne were 
four and twenty seats; and upon the seats I saw four and 
twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had 
on their heads crowns of gold.” 

12. Due steps: Steps that pursue the path of duty. Cf. 
II Penseroso, 155. 

13. Golden key: Cf. Matthew, xvi, 19. In L^adas, 1. Ill, 
St. Peter is represented as having two keys to heaven: 

^‘The golden opes, the iron shuts amain.” 

16. Ambrosial weeds: Celestial garments. Ambrosia was 
the food of the gods, as nectar was their drink; hence the gen- 
eral meaning of heavenly, celestial, immortal. For weeds, see 
note, U Allegro, 120. 

20. High and nether Jove : Jupiter, supreme god of Olympus 
and Pluto, god of the lower world, ‘^Stygian Jove,” as Ovid 
calls him. When Saturn was dethroned, his dominions were 
divided among his three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, 
i.e., the -upper, the middle, and the under worlds. In the 
Iliad, XV, 190, Neptune says: ‘^In three lots are all things 
divided, and each [of the three brothers] drew a domain of his 
own, and to me fell the hoary sea, to be my habitation forever, 
when we shook the lots” (Lang). 

21. Sea-girt isles: Ben Jonson calls Britain a sea-girt 
isle,” and Shakspere {Richard II, ii, i, 46) describes England 
as ‘^This precious stone set in the silver sea.” 

23. The unadorned bosom: The [otherwise] unadorned 
bosom. 

24. Tributary gods: Some of these lesser sea divinities are 
named in 11. 867-884. 


NOTES 


151 


25. Several: Separate. In due order he gives to each an 
island. But this isle, i.e., Great Britain, is so large that he 
divides ('‘quarters”) it among his "tributary gods.” Some, 
however, prefer to take quarters literally, referring it to the four 
actual divisions of government at that time, England, Scot- 
land, and the Lords-President of the North and of Wales. 

28. Compare Shakspere’s splendid eulogy {Richard II, 
ii, I, 40-61) beginning: 

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle.” 

29. Blue-haired deities : A variant of the previous expression 
"tributary gods.” Bell quotes Ovid’s expression for the sea- 
deities, "caerulei dii.” Spenser gave the sea-nymphs "long 
green hair.” 

30. This tract: Wales. Here myth is dropped and real 
history begins. 

31. A noble Peer: The Earl of Bridgewater, whose "new- 
intrusted scepter” is the appointment to be Lord-President 
of Wales and the Welsh Marches. Mickle is Anglo-Saxon 
and modern Scotch for great. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, ii, 3 , 15: 
"O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs.” 

33. Old and haughty nation : The Welsh are older than the 
English, being descended from the aboriginal Britons. 

34. Fair offspring: The two sons and daughter, who play 
the parts of the Brothers and the Lady in the Masque. 

37. Perplexed: Entangled, intricate. Note the recessive 
accent. 

40. Tender age : Lady Alice was not fifteen years old, 
and the brothers were younger. 

45. In hall or bower : In the home of lord or peasant. 

46-58: As in U Allegro and II Penseroso, Milton here in- 
vents a mythical genealogy to suit his own poetic and moral 
purpose. Bacchus, the god of wine, typifying sensuous 
pleasure, and Circe, the enchantress, are the parents of Comus, 
the type of lawless and voluptuous revelry, the antithesis of 
all that is noble and virtuous. Comus had appeared in myth 
and poetry from .^schylus to Ben Jonson and Dekker, but 


152 


MILTOWS POEMS 


nowhere with the endowment of qualities given to him by 
Milton. Says Masson: Milton’s Comus is a creation of his 
own, for which he was as little indebted to Puteanus as to 
Ben Jonson. For the purpose of his Masque at Ludlow Castle 
he was bold enough to add a brand-new god, no less, to the 
classic Pantheon, and to import him into Britain.” 

48. After the Tuscan mariners transformed: A Latin con- 
struction for. After the transformation of the Tuscan mariners. 
The Tuscan or Tyrrhenian mariners, having Bacchus on 
board their ship, plotted to sell him as a slave, but he trans- 
formed them into dolphins, and the mast and oars of the ship 
into serpents. So much of the story is classic,, and is found in 
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, hi, 630, and in the Homeric Hymn to 
Dionysus. The visit to Circe’s island is Milton’s addition to 
the story. 

49. As the winds listed: As the winds pleased. Cf. John, 
hi, 8: '^The wind bloweth where it listeth.” 

50. Who knows not Circe? Everyone who has read the 
tenth chapter of the Odyssey knows the story of Circe, how 
she exercised her enchantments upon Ulysses and with the 
charmed cup transformed his men into swine. Browne suggests 
imitation of Faerie Queene, vi, lo, 16: 

Poore Colin Clout (who knowes not Colin Clout?)’’ 

60. Celtic and Iberian fields: France and Spain. 

61. Ominous: Portentous, filled with evil omens. 

65. Orient: Bright. Cf. Paradise Lost, i, 546: ^^With 
orient colors waving.” 

66. Drought of Phoebus : Thirst caused by the sun. 

67. Fond : Foolish, as in II Penseroso, 6. 

71. Ounce: The snow leopard, or mountain panther, in- 
habiting the mountains of Asia. 

72. All other parts, etc. : In the Odyssey Circe’s victims were 
completely transformed, but here only the heads are changed, 
for the convenience of stage presentation. See stage direction, 
1. 92 below. 


NOTES 


153 


73. Perfect: Complete. So degraded are they that they 
are unconscious of their degradation. 

76. Friends and native home forgot: A shadowy recollec- 
tion, perhaps, of Homer’s description of the Lotus-Eaters 
{Odyssey y ix): Whoever ate of the pleasant fruit of the lotus 
no longer wished to bring back news, nor to return home.” 

79. Adventurous : Likely to be full of adventures, or risks. 

Glade is literally an opening in the wood, h^nce here used, 

by metonymy, for the wood itself. 

80. Glancing star: Shooting star. Cf. Paradise Lost, iv, 
556: ‘‘Swift as a shooting star.” 

83. Sky-robes: In 1. 16, they were “ambrosial weeds.” 

Of Iris' woof; i.e., of rainbow stuff. Iris was the personifica- 
tion of the rainbow. Cf. Paradise Lost, xi, 244. 

84. A swain: Henry Lawes, who acted the part. 

87. Knows to still: So Lycidas, 10: “He knew Himself to 
sing,” etc. Milton here, in his compliment to Lawes, seems 
to be delicately suggesting comparison with Orpheus. Cf. 
494-496 below. Note the alliteration in this line and the next. 

88. Nor of his faith: Nor is he less trustworthy as a friend 
than he is excellent as a musician. 

90. Likeliest: Thyrsis, in his mountain watch, is most 
likely to be at hand, if there should be occasion for his aid. 

92. Viewless: Invisible. 

[Stage direction]: Rout is a disorderly crowd, a rabble. 
Glistering is glittering. “ All that glisters is not gold ” {Merchant 
of Venice, ii, 7, 65). 

93. “The transition from the stately mood of the Attendant 
Spirit’s exordium to the noisy exhilaration of Comus is marked 
by appropriate changes in the verse. Comus speaks in a lyric 
strain, and his tone is exultant. When he comes to serious 
business, in line 145, he also employs blank verse.” (Thurber.) 

93. The star, etc.: The evening star, Hesperus. As the 
morning star, Lucifer (light-bearer). Shakspere calls it “the 
unfolding star” that “calls up the shepherd” {Measure for 
Measure, iv, 2, 218). 


154 


MILTON^S POEMS 


Top of heaven is the meridian; i.e., it is midnight. 

96. Doth allay : Doth cool the overheated axle of the golden 
chariot of Phcebus. 

97. Steep: ^^Deep; like our *high’ sea, sea at a great 
distance from the shore” (Browne). 

According to ancient geography the Atlantic was a great 
stream, encircling the earth. 

98. Slope sun: As the sun sinks below the horizon the 
beams slope upward toward the dusky zenith. Milton first 
wrote “northern pole.” 

101. Compare Psalms, xix, 5. 

105. Rosy twine : Roses entwined, wreaths of roses. 

110. Saws: Wise sayings, proverbs. Cf. As You Like It, 
ii, 7, 156: “Full of wise saws and modern instances.” 

111. Pure fire : Free from the grosser elements of earth and 
water, of which mortals are made. The ancients associated 
pure fire with divinity. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, v, 2 , 292. 

112. Starry quire: One of Milton’s many allusions to the 
music of the spheres. See Hymn on the Nativity, 125, and note, 
and 1021 below, and Arcades, 63-73. Cf. Merchant of Venice, 
V, 1,61. 

116. Morrice : Morrice-dance, originally Moorish dance, 
because brought from Spain; a popular May-day dance in old 
England, in which the dancers often impersonated Robin 
Hood and his merry men. 

117. Shelves: Flat ledges of rock. 

118. Pert: Lively, nimble. Dapper, quick, German <ap/er. 

120. Daisies trim: Cf. U Allegro, 75: “Meadows trim, with 
daisies pied.” 

121. Wakes: Originally night-watches, then night revels. 
The wake was at first a vigil kept on the eve of a saint’s day, 
or at the consecration of a church. Compare the Irish and 
Scotch “wake.” 

129. Cotytto : A libidinous goddess of Thrace. Dark- 
veiled because her festival was held at midnight. The poet 
doubtless slurred the to in to whom. 


NOTES 


155 


132. Stygian darkness: Cf. U Allegro, 3. Spets, an old form 
of spits. So spettle for spittle. 

134. Chair : Chariot. In 11 Penseroso, 59, Cynthia’s chariot 
is drawn by a ‘^dragon yoke.” 

135. Hecat’ : Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, of Thracian 
origin, associated with ghosts, haunted spots, bowlings of dogs, 
and other nocturnal horrors. In Macbeth she is queen of the 
witches, mistress of all their charms.” The name is properly 
a word of three syllables. 

139. Nice : Used sarcastically, overparticular, fastidious. 
Indian steep is merely the Eastern hill. 

141. Descry: Reveal, or describe. The scrupulous Morn, 
shocked by what he sees, will blah it to the Sun, and the Sun 
will tell it to everybody. 

143. Solemnity: Ceremony, the rites” of, 1. 125, and 
“dues’^ of, 1. 137. 

144. Compare U Allegro, 34. The round is a dance in which all 
join hands. Measure is a dance, generally of a stately character. 
^ 147. Shrouds: Coverts, hiding-places. 

^151. Wily trains : Cunning enticements. 

153. Thus I hurl : The actor personating Comus here 
throws some kind of glistening or inflammable powder into 
the air. For dazzling spells Miltorl first wrote powdered spells, 
corresponding to magic dust in 165 below. 

155. Blear illusion: Deception, as if through eyes bleared 
or dimmed. 

157. Quaint habits : Curious, unfamiliar clothes. 

158. Suspicious flight : Flight caused by suspicion. 

, 161. Glozing: Flattering, deceiving; from the old word 

glose, the gloss or^commentary upon a classic text, often more 
deceptive than explanatory. 

167. The thrifty villager is kept occupied until late at night 
with his country business. 

168. Fairly: Softly, quietly. 

174. Loose unlettered minds: Unrestrained and uncultured 
rustics. 


156 


MILTON^S POEMS 


175. Granges : Granaries. 

176. Bounteous Pan: The god of all nature, upon whose 
bounteous favors country people depended for success with their 
crops and flocks. Cf. Hymn of the Nativity, 89, and note. 

177. Amiss : In the wrong way. 

179. Wassailers : Revelers, drinkers of healths. The Anglo- 
Saxon wes hael, be hale, of sound health, was the salutation at a 
drinking bout; hence wassail-bowl. Cf. Hamlet, i, 4 , 9. 

189. Sad votarist : A votarist is one who has taken a vow. 
Sad is serious. The 'palmer was a pilgrim who had made a 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem and carried a palm branch as evidence 
of his achievement. 

190. Hindmost wheels, etc.: Masson interprets the picture 
thus: ‘^Evening succeeding day as the figure of a venerable 
gray-hooded mendicant might slowly follow the wheels of some 
rich man’s chariot.’’ 

195-200. The complicated metaphor in these lines of Night 
shutting up the stars, with their lamps of everlasting oil, in a 
dark lantern,^ shows that Milton did not entirely escape the 
fantastic ‘^conceits” of the lesser poets of his period, Donne, 
Cowley, and others, whom Dr. Johnson dubbed the ^^Meta- 
physical Poets.” Note the awkward grammatical construction 
in 1. 198. 

204. Single darkness: Simple, unmixed darkness. Cf. 
Matthew, vi, 22 . 

205-209. “That wonderful passage in Comus of the airy 
tongues, perhaps the most imaginative in suggestion he ever 
wrote, was conjured out of a dry sentence in Purchas’s abstract 
of Marco Polo. Such examples help us to understand the poet ” 
(Lowell). We cannot be so sure of this definite indebtedness. 
In Hey wood’s Hierarchy of Angels is a passage about benighted 
travelers who saw strange human shapes, calling and beckoning 
to them. The Anatomy of Melancholy was a possible source. 
In Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess, i, i, 117, is a passage similar 
to Milton’s lines. “But the Tempest may well have suggested 
the whole imagery” (Browne). 


NOTES 


157 


210. May startle well : May well startle. 

212. Strong siding: We ‘‘side with’’ or “take the side” of 
one to give support or defense. 

215. Chastity: A liberty taken with the Bible trio of cardinal 
virtues. Milton is here introducing the central theme of the 
poem. 

219. Glistering guardian: Guardian angel, clothed in “pure 
ambrosial weeds” (1. 16). The form glittering was never 
used by Milton. 

220. The Lady suddenly pauses, as she sees a gleam of light 
through the darkness surrounding her. 

230. Some editors think they find the suggestion of this song 
in Ben Jonson’s Cynthia's Revels, in Peele’s Old Wives' Tale, 
and in Browne’s Inner Temple Masque. Perhaps Milton needed 
no suggesting model. 

231. Airy shell: The “hollow round” {Nativity, 102) or 
vault of heaven in which Echo lives. 

232. Meander: A stream of many windings in Phrygia; 
hence our verb meander. 'Keightley thinks that Milton had in 
mind a likeness between the repeated windings of this river 
and “the repercussion of an echo.” 

237. Thy Narcissus: The nymph Echo loved in vain the 
beautiful Narcissus, and pined away until only her voice was 
left. As a punishment. Aphrodite caused Narcissus to fall in 
love with his own reflection in a fountain; unable to tear him- 
self from the water’s edge, he was changed to the flower that 
bears his name. Cf. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, iii, 339. 

233-234. Hales feels sure of an allusion in these lines to 
Colonus, near Athens, celebrated by Sophocles for its night- 
ingales, and quotes from a guide-book: “In the opening of the 
year the whole grove is vocal with the melody of the night- 
ingales, and the ground is carpeted with violets, those national 
flowers of Athens.” Aristophanes often calls Athens the 
“violet-crowned” city. In Paradise Regained, iv, 245, Milton 
definitely associates the nightingale, “the Attic bird,” with this 
locality. 


158 


MILTON^S POEMS 


241-243. Daughter of the Sphere : Echo, born of the music 
of the spheres, will return to the skies to give a resounding grace 
to those heavenly harmonies. Cf. At a Solemn Music, 2: 

^‘Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse. 

^ . 244. Mortal mixture of earth^s mold : Human being. The 
graceful personal compliment will be noted here, as in many 
other passages of the poem. 

248. His: Its, referring to “something holy.” It must be 
remembered that Milton used its only three times in his poetry. 

251. Fall: Fall of the voice, cadence; a musical term of the 
period. 

253. Sirens : The Sirens were beautiful maidens who dwelt 
on a rocky island near Sicily and tempted mariners to destruc- 
tion by their sweet singing. In Homer’s story {Odyssey, xii) 
there are but two Sirens, and they have no connection with 
Circe. It was by Circe’s warning that Ulysses escaped, having 
put wax in his sailors’ ears and having had himself lashed to the 
mast. 

255. Naiades : Nymphs of fountains and streams. Flowery- 
kirtled, with gowns adorned with flowers. The Nymphs 
attendant upon Circe aided her in gathering herbs for her 
magic potions. 

256. Take the prisoned soul : Take the soul prisoner. 

257. Lap it in Elysium : See U Allegro, 136 and 147. 

257-259. Even the terrible sea-monsters Scylla and Chary b- 

dis were soothed by the music. Scylla, beloved by Glaucus, 
was changed by her jealous rival Circe into a monster, sur- 
sounded by barking dogs. She then jumped into the sea and 
became a rock. Barking waves is Vergil’s “latrantibus undis” 
{^neid, vii, 588). Near the rock Scylla was the awful whirl- 
pool Charybdis. See Odyssey, xii, for Ulysses’s adventure 
with these monsters. Cf. jEneid, iii, 551-560. 

262. Home-felt: Heartfelt, deeply felt. Cf. “home-thrust,” 
and “to strike home.” 

265. Cf. Tempest, i, 2 y 42Q: “O you wonder! Ifyoubemaid 


NOTES 


159 


267. Unless the goddess : Unless thou art the goddess. 

268. Pan: See 1. 176. Sylvan, Sylvanus, the god of fields 
and forests; Latin silva, a wood. Cf. II Penseroso, 134. 

269. Forbidding, etc.: In Arcades, 48, this power is at- 
tributed to the “Genius of the wood.” 

271. Ill is lost: A Latin idiom, male perditur (Keightley). 

273. Extreme shift: Last resource. The phrase occurs in 
Sackville’s Mirror for Magistrates, with the same accent, 
extreme: “In rustic armour, as in extream shift.” 

277-290. The line for line question and answer in this 
passage is an imitation of the dialogue in the Greek tragedies. 

279. Near-ushering : Closely attending. 

287. Is this loss important beyond the present need? 

289. Hebe : The goddess of eternal youth, as well as cup- 
bearer to the gods. 

291. What time : At what time, when. An idiom common 
in the old poets and in the Scriptures. Cf. Lycidas, 28. Noting 
the time of day by the unyoking of the tired oxen is thoroughly 
classical. Cf. Iliad, xvi, 779: “When the sun turned to the 
time of the loosing of oxen,” and Vergil, Eclogues, ii,66; Horace, 
Odes, iii, 6, 41. 

297. Port: Bearing, mien. An obvious compliment to the 
Earl’s two sons. 

298. Vision: Pronounce as a trisyllable. 

299. Element : The air, or sky, as frequently in Shakspere. 
The clown in Twelfth Night (iii, 1) says the word is “over- 
worn,” and so uses “welkin.” 

301. Plighted: Folded. Cf. Lear, i, i, 283: 

“Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides.” 

312. Dingle : A narrow valley between steep hills. Bosky 
bourn is a bushy stream (Scotch burn), or, as here used, the 
narrow valley of the stream. 

315. Stray attendance : Strayed attendants. 

317. Low-roosted: Low-nested. The lark builds her nest 
upon the ground, and the sloping and interlacing stems of grass 
or grain form a kind of natural thatch over it. It is not neces- 


160 


MILTOWS POEMS 


sary to take roosting in its ordinary sense of 'perching, thus 
bringing Milton’s knowledge of the lark to shame; and thatched 
pallet, as a description of the nest, is quite accurate enough for 
poetry. Thatched may possibly refer to the substance and 
structure of the nest itself. 

322-326. Compare Spenser’s Faerie Queene, vi, i, 1: 

Of Court, it seemes, men Courtesie doe call 
For that it there most useth to abound.; 

And well beseemeth that in Princes hall 
That virtue should be plentifully found. 

Which of all goodly manners is the ground, 

And roote of civill conversation.” 

Was Milton already looking askance at royalty? 

326-328. Since I cannot be in any place where there is less 
guarantee of safety than here, I should not fear to change it 
for another. 

329. Square my trial, etc.: Adjust my trial and make it 
proportionate to my strength. 

332. Benison: Blessing. Browne cites Faerie Queene, iii, 
I, 43: 

^^Of the poore traveiler that went astray 
With thousand blessings she [the Moon] is heried [honored].” 

333. Cf II Penseroso 72 Also Fletcher’s Maid's Traged'y, 
i, 1: 

Appear, no longer thy pale visage shroud, 

But stoop thy silver horns quite thrgugh a cloud.” 

334. Disinherit: Dispossess. Cf. Paradis^Eost, ii, 959. 

336. Influence: See Hymn on the Nativit'y, 71, and note. 

338. Wicker hole : The window hole of a peasant’s cottage, 

filled in with wicker work instead of glass, which would be 
too expensive. 

341. Star of Arcady, or T5n*ian Cynosure : The Greeks steered 
their ships by the constellation of the Great Bear, any star of 
which was the Star of Arcady, so called because Callisto, daughter 
of the King of Arcady, or Arcadia, was changed into this 
constellation. The Tyrian, or Phoenician, mariners steered by 


V 


NOTES 


161 


the Lesser Bear, the tail of which, containing the Polestar, 
was called Cynosura, dog’s tail. Cf. U Allegro, 80. 

344. Wattled cotes: Inclosures made of plaited twigs. 
Cf. “hurdled cotes,” Paradise Lost, iv, 185. 

345. Pastoral reed with oaten stops : The Greek shepherds 
made their pipes of reeds or oaten stalks; hence the “oaten 
pipe” became symbolical of pastoral poetry. The stops are 
the holes cut in the stalk, over which the fingers are placed. 
Cf. Lycidas, 33, 88, 188. 

346. Whistle from the lodge: The shepherd’s whistle for 
his dog. 

349. Innumerous: Innumerable. Cf. Paradise Lost, vii, 
455. 

359. Overexquisite : Overinquisitive, too curious. 

360. Cast the fashion: Forecast the form or character. 

361. Grant they be so: Grant that they are indeed evils. 

362. What need, etc.: What need is there that a man 
anticipate his hour of grief? Cf. 752 below. 

366. So to seek : So at a loss, so inexperienced. An idiom 
of Elizabethan English. Cf. Paradise Lost, viii, 197. 

^ 367. Unprincipled: Ignorant of the fundamental principles 
of-virtue. Cf. Samson Agonistes, 760: “With goodness prin- 
cipled.” 

369. Single want : The mere want. 

371. Stir the constant mood : Disturb the steadfast mood. 

373-375. Cf. Faerie Queene, i, i, 12: “Vertue gives herselfe 
light through darknesse for to wade.” See lines 381-385 below. 

376. Seeks to : Resorts to. A common idiom in the 
Authorized Version of the Bible. Cf. 1 Kings, x, 24; Isaiah, 
xi, 10; xix, 3. 

377. Contemplation: Pronounce in five syllables, like self- 
delusion, 365 above. Sidney in the Arcadia calls “Solitariness” 
the “nurse of these contemplations.” Cf. 11 Penseroso, 54. 

378. Plumes : Preens, arranges. 

380. All to-ruffled : Completely ruffled. The particle to 
in old English is an intensive prefix to many verbs, as in 


162 


MILTON'S POEMS 


Chaucer, ^^The pot to-hreaketh" means the pot breaks in pieces ; 
so, to-rende, i.e., tear in pieces, to-hewe, hew in pieces. All 
is in the sense of quite. 

382. Center: Center of the earth. Cf. Paradise Lost, i, 
686, and Hamlet, ii, 2, 159. 

393. Hesperian tree : The golden apples of Juno were 
guarded by three nymphs, daughters of Hesperus, and by the 
dragon Ladon (hence dragon-watch, 395). It was one of the 
^Mabors " of Hercules to obtain these apples. 

395. Unenchanted eye : Eye that cannot be enchanted. 
So unreproved, U Allegro, 40. 

398. Unsunned : Hidden in dark places away from the 
sun. Spenser has Mammon sunning his threasure hore^’ 
{Faerie Queene, ii, 7). 

401. Wink on: Close the eyes to, forego. 

404. It recks me not : I care not, take no account of night 
or loneliness. Cf. Lycidas, 122. 

407. Unowned: Unprotected, as if unowned. Note the 
hypermetric syllables in this line, after the third and the fifth 
foot. 

408. Infer : Argue. An obsolete use of the word. Cf. 
Paradise Lost, vii, 116; viii, 91. 

413. Squint suspicion: Suspicion, looking sidewise habitu- 
ally, is unable to see straight. Bell quotes Quarles: 

“Hart-gnawing Hatred, and Squint-eyed Suspicion." 

419. If Heaven gave it: Though Heaven gave it. 

420. Tis chastity : “ The passage which begins here and 

ends at line 475 is a concentrated expression of the moral of 
the whole Masque, and an exposition also of a cardinal idea of 
Milton’s philosophy" (Masson). 

421. Complete : Accented on the first syllable, as in Hamlet, 
i, 4, 52. But cf. Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester, 
1 . 12 . 

422. Quivered nymph: So Belphoebe, the personification of 
chastity in the Faerie Queene, ii, 3, 29, has “at her backe a bow 


NOTES 


163 


and quiver gay.” Diana, the chaste huntress of the Romans, 
was armed with bow and quiver, ^nd so, in Shakspere’s 
phrase, virginity is “Diana’s livery’^ {Pericles, ii, 5, 9). 

423. Trace : Traverse, find a way through. Unharhored, 
affording no harbor or resting place. 

424. Infamous : Of bad fame; a Latinism. Horace so 
calls the Acroceraunian promontory, which was dangerous 
to ships {Odes, i, 3 , 20). This word should probably be ac- 
cented on the second syllable; 'perilous should not be reduced 
to a dissyllable, as many editors insist, even though Shak- 
spere did often say parlous. 

426. Bandite : This is Milton’s spelling of the word, which 
was, says Masson, “probably rather a new word about Milton’s 
time”; from Italian handito, an outlaw. 

Mountaineer, here used in a bad sense as in Cymbeline, iv, 2 , 
120: “Who called me traitor, mountaineer.” 

429. Shagged : Rugged, shaggy, past participle of the verb 
shag. 

430. Unblenched : Undaunted, unabashed. 

431. Be it not : If it be not. 

432. Some say, etc.: Cf. Hamlet, i, i, 158-164; also Fletcher’s 
Faithful Shepherdess, i, 1 : 

“Yet I have heard (my mother told it me. 

And now I do believe it) if*I keep 
My virgin-flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair, 

No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend. 

Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves, 

Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion 
Draw me to wander after idle fires; 

Or voices calling me in dead of night 

To make me follow, and so toll me on 

Through mire and standing pools to find my ruin.” 

Milton’s indebtedness to either one of these passages should 
not be too positively asserted, for such folklore material was 
current and common property in his day. 

433. In fog or fire : See note, II Penseroso, 93-96. 

434. Unlaid ghost : A ghost that is not allayed, appeased, 


164 


MILTON'S POEMS 


or exorcised. According to popular belief ghosts could wander 
freely at night between curfew and cock-crow. Cf. Lear, iii, 
4 , 121; Tempest, v, i, 40, and Hamlet, i, i, 150. See Hymn on 
the Nativity, 232, and note. 

436. Swart faery of the mine : In the Anatomy of*Melancholy 
we find that ^^Subterranean devils are as common as the rest, 
and do as much harm. Olaus Magnus makes six kinds of 
them; some bigger, some less. These are commonly seen about 
mines of metals, and are some of them noxious; some again do 
no harm. The metal-men in many places account it good 
luck, a sign of treasure and rich ore when they see them.” 

439. Schools of Greece : The brother has been drawing his 
argument from the mediaeval mythology of Europe, and now 
turns to the classic mythology. 

442. Silver-shafted : The epithet is appropriate to the two- 
fold character of Diana, as goddess of the woods and hunting, 
and as goddess of the moon. 

447. Brinded: Brindled, spotted. Cf. Macbeth, iv, i, 1: 
''the brinded cat.” 

444. Mountain-pard : The ounce, or mountain panther. 

447. Snaky-headed Gorgon shield : Medusa, one of the three 
terrible Gorgons, whose heads were covered with hissing serpents, 
was slain by Perseus, and Minerva, goddess of wisdom and of 
war, placed the monster’s head in the center of her shield. 
All who looked at the head were turned to stone. Milton is 
giving to the myth his own interpretation. 

451. Dashed: Put out of countenance, shamed. 

454. Sincerely so : Sincerely chaste. 

453-474. So dear to Heaven, etc.: "The language of 
mythological allusion now ceases, and the speaker passes, in 
his own name, into a strain of Platonic philosophy tinged with 
Christianity” (Masson). 

455. Liveried angels lackey her: Ministering angels attend 
upon her like liveried servants in palaces of the great. 

457. Vision: A trisyllable; so contagion, 467 below. 

459. Oft converse: Frequent communion. The noun con 


NOTES 


165 


verse is accented on the second syllable by Milton and Shak- 
spere. 

462. And turns : Masson thinks the change to the indicative 
significant, ‘^as if certainty had so increased before the second 
clause that it could be stated as a fact.” 

468. Imbodies and imbrutes : Becomes material and brute- 
like. These lines reproduce the substance of a passage in 
Plato’s Phcedo. Cf. Paradise Lost, ix, 166. 

469. Divine property: Milton elsewhere calls the soul ‘Hhat 
divine particle of God’s breathing.” 

470. Gloomy shadows, etc.: The impure soul at death ^Gs 
engrossed by the corporeal” and “depressed and dragged down 
again into the visible world below — prowling about tombs and 
sepulchers, in the neighborhood of which, as they tell us, are 
seen certain ghostly apparitions of souls which have not de- 
parted pure, but are cloyed with sight and therefore visible 
{Phcedo, Jowett’s trans.). 

473. Sensualty: Milton’s spelling; the modern spelling, 
sensuality, mars the meter. 

475. How charming, etc.: “A special compliment to Plato, 
who has just been quoted” (Masson). Milton greatly admired 
Plato and spoke of his work as “the divine volume of Plato.” 

478. Musical as is Apollo’s lute : Cf. Love's Labor's Lost, iv, 
3 , 342: “As sweet and musical as bright Apollo’s lute.” 

483. Night foundered : “Swallowed up in night, as a ship is 
in the sea when she founders" (Masson). 

494. Thyrsis: A name taken from the pastoral poetry of 
Theocritus. The sentence is a compliment to Henry Lawes, who 
is acting the part of Thyrsis. The rhymed couplets were 
doubtless intended to give a pastoral effect appropriate to 
the character, thus also adding to the covert compliment. 

501. Next joy: The younger son. He addresses both 
brothers. 

509. Sadly: Seriously, truly; a frequent use of the word 
in the Elizabethan period. Bacon, in his Essays, says: “To 
speak now in a sad and serious manner.” 


166 


MILTON'S POEMS 


515. What the sage poets, etc. : Homer describes the Chimcera 
and the enchanted isles of Circe and Calypso, and Vergil describes 
the descent of Orpheus to hell through the rifted rock of Tsenarus. 
In Paradise Lost, hi, 19, Milton speaks of himself as ‘Haught 
by the heavenly Muse.” In these, as in many other passages, 
he suggests his ideal of the lofty character of the true poet’s 
calling. 

517. Chimaeras: The Chimsera was a fire-breathing monster, 
with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a 
dragon, which was slain by Bellerophon. Cf. Paradise Lost, 

ii, 628. 

520. Navel: Center. The Greeks called the temple of 
Apollo at Delphi ^Hhe navel of the earth.” 

522. Of Bacchus and of Circe born : This parentage of 
Comus is Milton’s invention. See 11. 46-66 above. In later 
classic mythology Comus is the god of mirth; Milton added the 
necromantic qualities. 

526. Murmurs : Incantations. 

529. Unmolding reason’s mintage : Destroying the marks 
of a rational soul stamped upon the face. The metaphor is 
from the melting of coins for the purpose of restamping. 
Charactered is accented on the second syllable, as often in 
Shakspere, and is used in the sense of the original Greek 
word, XapaKriip, an engraved or stamped mark. 

531. Hilly crofts, etc.: Small inclosed fields that overhang • 
the glade below. 

533. Monstrous rout: Troops of monsters. See stage 
direction, 1. 92 above, for the entrance of Comus. 

534. Stabled wolves: Wolves in their dens, or perhaps 
wolves that have got into the sheepfold.” Milton may have 

had in mind Vergil’s ^^Triste lupus stabulis” {Eclogues, 

iii, 80). 

535. Hecate : See note on 135 above. 

539. Unweeting: Unwitting, unsuspicious. 

540. By then : When, by the time that. 

546. Pleasing fit of melancholy: This is the specialized, 


NOTES 


167 


poetic melancholy of II Penseroso. In 1. 810 below the older 
sense of the word is used. 

547. Meditate my rural minstrelsy: Compose or sing a 
pastoral song. A Vergilian phrase {Eclogues, i and vi). Cf. 
Lyddas, 66. The Latin meditor means not only to think upon, 
but also to exercise oneself in, to practice. 

553. Drowsy-flighted : Drowsily flying. The early editions 
have drowsie frighted, meaning the drowsy steeds that had been 
frightened; but Milton’s orrected manuscript has drowsy flighted, 
which with the hyphen inserted is the more poetical and a 
characteristic Miltonic epithet. This reading is adopted by 
Masson, though with hesitation. 

555. At last a soft, etc.: ^^A renewed compliment to the 
Echo-song of the Lady, and in language of memorable splendor” 
(Masson). See 11. 244-252 above. 

557. That : So that. So before that was frequently omitted 
in the language of that period. The idea of Silence charmed by 
music occurs again in Paradise Lost, iv, 604. 

560. Still : Ever, always; a common usage of that period. 

568. Lawns : Glades among trees. This word generally 
in Milton means any open stretch of grass ground. Cf. 
U Allegro, 71. 

575. Such two : Two such as she describes. 

585. Period : Sentence. For me is for my part, or so far 
as I am concerned. 

588. Erring men call : Men erroneously call. 

589. Virtue may be assailed, etc.: This was a cardinal 
principle of Milton’s belief and life. The passage (586-599), 
says Masson, is ‘^a peculiarly Miltonic passage; one of those that 
ought to be got by heart both on its own account and in memory 
of Milton.” 

591. That which mischief, etc.: That which was intended 
to be the source of most harm shall in the fortunate experience 
prove to be the source of most glory. 

597. This : This fundamental truth. 

598. Pillared firmament : The firmament is conceived of as 


168 


MILTON^S POEMS 


the roof of the earth, resting upon massive pillars, like the roof 
of a great cathedral. 

604. Acheron: The infernal river, here used by metonymy 
for Hell. Browne quotes from Phineas Fletcher’s Locusts 
(1627): ^^All hell run out, and sooty flags display.” 

605. Harpies and Hydras: The Harpies were unclean 
monsters, with the head of a woman and the body and claws of 
a bird. Cf. Vergil’s jEneid, iii, 216. Hydras are monstrous 
water-serpents. The nine-headed Hydra was slain by Hercules. 

606. Ind: India, the region of black enchantments” 

(Masson). 

607. Purchase : Booty, ill-gotten gain; as often in Spenser, 
Shakspere, and others of the period. Fr., pourchassery to seek 
for and obtain — sometimes by fair means or foul. 

608. Curls: The ancient voluptuaries wore curls. 

611. Stead: Service. Cf. the phrase, ^^stand one in stead.” 

614. Unthread its joints, etc.: Make limp and powerless. 
Cf. Tempest, iv, i, 259. 

619. A certain shepherd lad: It is believed that this refers 
to Milton’s dear friend Charles Diodati, who was a physician 
and botanist. Cf. Epitaphium Damonis, 150-154. 

620. To see to : To look at. Cf. 1 Samuel, xvi, 12 : ‘^goodly 
to look to,” and Ezekiel, xxiii, 15. 

621. Virtuous: Possessing medicinal virtue or power. 

627. Simples: Medicinal herbs; ^^so called because each 

vegetable was supposed to possess its particular virtue, and 
therefore to constitute a simple remedy” {Cen. Die,). Cf. 
Romeo and Juliet, ii, 3 , 8-16. 

633. Golden flower: Coleridge suggested that by the 
prickles and golden flower Milton symbolized the sorrows 
and triumph of the Christian life. 

‘^There can be little doubt,” says Professor Moody, “that 
the plant symbolizes Christian grace; and that when the poet 
declares that the golden flower which it bears under better skies 
cannot come to blossom in the harsh soil where the shepherd 
found it, he is brooding over the corruptions of the English 


NOTES 


169 


Church, in a spirit only less intense than that which three years 
later found such surprising expression within the fantastic 
framework of Lycidas.” 

634. And like esteemed: Unappreciated, as, it is unknown. 

635. Clouted shoon: Patched shoes. Shoon is the Anglo- 
Saxon plural in n as in oxen. Cf. 2 Henry VI, iv, 2, 195. 

636. Medicinal : Milton’s spelling. But the full form occurs 
in Samson Agonistes, 627. 

Moly: The plant that Hermes (Mercury) gave to Ulysses, 
with which he resisted the charms of Circe {Odyssey, x, 280). 
Milton may have had in mind, as well as Homer’s story, a 
passage in Ascham’s Scholemaster: ^‘The true medicine against 
enchantments of Circe, the vanity of licentious pleasure, the 
enticements of all sin, is, in Homer, the herb Moly, with the 
black root and white flower, sour at first, but sweet in the 
end; which Hesiod termeth the study of Virtue, hard and 
irksome in the beginning, but in the end easy and pleasant.” 
Cf. the Latin Elegy I, 90: 

Immortal Moly shall secure my heart 
From all the sorcery of Circean art.” 

638. Haemony: The name and the plant are of Milton’s 
invention. Hoemonia was a name for Thessaly, a part of 
Greece noted for magic. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, vii, 264, 
Hoemonian is used in the sense of magical. 

639. Sovran use : Supremely efficacious. On the form 
sorvan, see Hymn on Nativity, 60, note. 

640. Mildew blast: Cf. Hamlet, iii, 4, 64: ^^Here is your 
husband, like a mildew’d ear, Blasting his wholesome brother.” 

641. Furies: The three goddesses of vengeance, who were 
like Gorgons, with snakes for hair, and scourges or sickles in 
their hands. 

642. Little reckoning made : Thought little of it. Cf. 
Lycidas, 116. 

646. Lime-twigs: Snares; twigs covered with a viscous, 
limelike paste, to catch birds. This metaphor is frequent in 
Shakspere, as Hamlet, iii, 3, 68; 3 Henry VI, iii. 3, 16. 


170 


MILTON^S POEMS 


651. Break his glass: So Sir Guyon breaks the golden cup 
of the enchantress in Faerie Queene, i, 12 , 56. 

653. Seize his wand : The reason for seizing his magic wand 
is explained in, 815-819 below. 

655. Like the sons of Vulcan: An allusion to the giant 
Cacus, son of Vulcan, in his contest with Hercules. Vergil’s 
Mneid^ viii, 252: 

^^Faucibus ingentem fumum, mirabile dictu, 

Evomit.” 

661. Daphne : The beautiful nymph, Daphne, when pursued 
by Apollo, prayed to the gods to help her to escape, and was 
transformed into a laurel tree (Ovid’s Metamor 'phases, i). 

673. His : Its. See Hyrri'n on Nativity, 106, note. . 

675. Nepenthes: The drug which Helen gave to Menelaus: 
‘^Presently she cast a drug into the wine they drank, a drug to 
lull all pain and anger, and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow. 
Whoso should drink a draught thereof, when it is mingled in 
the bowl, on that day he would let no tear fall down his cheeks, 
not though his father and his mother died. . . . Medicines of 
such virtue and so helpful had the daughter of Zeus, which, 
Polydamna, the wife of Thon, had given her, a woman of 
Egypt {Odyssey, iv, 220 et seq.). 

685. Unexempt condition: Condition from which no one is 
exempt. Condition here has four syllables. 

693. The cottage : See 320 above. 

694. Aspects : Accented on the last syllable, as regularly 
in that period. 

698. Visored: Masked. 

700. Liquorish : Pleasing to the taste. 

761. Draught for Juno : Juno was queen of the gods, whose 
drink was nectar. 

762. None but such, etc.: It was noted by Newton that 
this sentence is a translation of 1. 618, in the Medea of Euripides: 
‘^The gifts of the bad man are without profit.” 

707. Budge doctors of the Stoic fur: Budge, as a noun, 


NOTES 


171 


meant a kind of fur used to trim a scholastic gown, such 
as a ^'doctor” would wear. As an adjective it meant pompous, 
formal, pedantic. The two meanings may possibly be com- 
bined here, giving the sense, ^Hhese pretentious teachers of the 
Stoic philosophy.” 

708. The Cynic tub : The tub of Diogenes, the Cynic. The 
Cynics and Stoics were supposed to renounce all things pleasing 
to the appetites. 

711. Unwithdrawing: Continually liberal. 

719. Hutched : Stowed away. A hutch is a chest or bin, 
as “bolting-hutch,” a box for bolted meal, and “rabbit- 
hutch.” 

722. Frieze : Coarse woolen cloth. 

728. Who : Nature. Strangled, suffocated. 

729. Winged air darked, etc.: The air darkened with 
multitudes of flying birds. 

732. O’erfraught: Overfreighted, overburdened. 

733. Forehead of the deep : The surface of the deep earth 
in general may possibly be the meaning, for Milton could 
hardly have shared the ignorant belief that diamonds and 
other precious gems are to be found at the bottom of the sea. 
For bestud with stars the original manuscript has “bestud the 
centre [^.e., center of the earth] with star-light.” 

They below, the people of the lower world. 

739-755. Beauty is Nature’s coin, etc.: “The idea that 
runs through these seventeen lines is a favorite one with the 
old poets; and Warton and Todd cite parallel passages from 
Shakspere, Spenser, Daniel, Fletcher, and Drayton” (Masson). 
Cf. Midsummer NighCs Dream, i, i, 76-78, and Sonnets i-vi, 
“which are pervaded by the idea in all its subtleties.” 

746. High solemnities : Stately festivities. 

748. It is for homely features, etc. : Note the play on words. 
Milton does not often indulge in puns, like Shakspere. Cf. 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, i, i, 2: “Home-keeping youth have 
ever homely wits.” 

750. Sorry grain: Poor color. See II Penseroso, 33, note. 


172 


MILTON^S POEMS 


751. Ply the sampler, etc.: Work a sampler (exemplar) 
and card (with teazels) the housewife’s wool, the approved 
occupations of our great-great-grandmothers. 

752. Vermeil-tinctured : Vermilion colored; Latin vermiliuSy 
little woven, the cochineal insect, from which the color was 
obtained. Cf. Spenser’s Prothalamion: “With store of vermeil 
roses.” 

756-761. These lines are to be regarded as an aside. 

758. As mine eyes : Deceive my judgment as he has my eyes. 

760. Bolt: Sift, refine, make alluring; as the miller holts 
meal, separates it from the bran. 

767. Spare temperance: Cf. II Penseroso, 46: “Spare Fast, 
that oft with gods doth diet.” 

768-774. If every just man, etc.: Compare Gloster’s speech, 
Lear, iv, i, 67-74. 

780. Enow : A provincial form of enough, originally plural. 

780-799. To him that dares, etc.: “A recurrence, by the 
sister, with even more mystic fervor, to that Platonic and 
Miltonic doctrine which had already been propounded by the 
Elder Brother, lines 420-475” (Masson). 

785. Sublime notion, etc.: In the Apology for Smectymnuus 
Milton speaks of studying in the “divine volume of Plato” 
about the “abstracted sublimities” of Chastity and Love, and 
also in Holy Scriptures which unfold “these chaste and high 
mysteries.” 

791. Fence: Argumentation. A metaphor from the art of 
fencing, the elaborate niceties of which are humorously de- 
scribed in Romeo and Juliet, ii, 4 , 19 et seq. 

794. Rapt : Enraptured. Cf. II Penseroso, 40. 

797. The brute earth, etc. : Earth himself would be human- 
ized and lend me sympathetic aid. A memory or translation 
of Horace’s “bruta tellus” {Odes, i, 34 , 9). 

803-806. The wrath of Jove, etc.: An allusion to the war 
of Jupiter (Zeus) against Saturn (Cronos) and his allies, the 
Titans, who were cast down from heaven into Tartarus or 
Erebus, the region of darkness. 


NOTES 


173 


804. Speaks thunder, etc.: With thunder condemns to the 
chains, etc. 

808. Canon laws of our foundation: Fundamental laws of 
our society. ‘‘A humorous application of the language of 
universities and other foundations” (Keightley). 

809. Tis but the lees, etc.: A bit of the old philosophy of 
the ‘^four humors.” Todd quotes Nash’s Terrors of the Night 
(1594) : ‘‘The grossest part of our blood is the melancholy humor, 
which . . . with his thick-steaming, fevery vapors, casteth a 
mist over the spirit. ... It sinketh down to the bottom like the 
lees of the wine, corrupting all the blood, and is the cause of 
lunacy.” 

816. Rod reversed : According to the practices of the magic 
art, the spell of enchantment could be removed by reversing 
the magic rod and pronouncing the words of the charm back- 
ward. In this way Circe restored the followers of Ulysses to 
their human form (Ovid’s Metamorphoses, xiv, 300). Mutters, 
the words of the incantation, like murmurs, 1. 526 above. 

822. Meliboeus : A common name for a shepherd in pastoral 
poetry, used by Vergil {Eclogue I). It here refers undoubtedly 
to Spenser, who gives the story of Sabrina in the Faerie Queene, 
ii, 10 , 14. The story is in Drayton’s Polyolbion and Warner’s 
Albion's England*, and Milton, in his History of Britain, copies 
it directly from the old chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
whom some editors identify with Meliboeus. But the soothest 
[truest] shepherd, in 1. 823, must be a poet, and Spenser was 
much admired by Milton. 

827. Whilom : Of old, formerly. An obsolete word in Mil- 
ton’s time. Cf. Chaucer’s “Whilom, as olde stories tellen us.” 

828. Brute : Brutus, grandson of Aeneas, the mythical 
founder of Britain. 

830. Enraged stepdame : Guendolen had been put aside 
by Locrine, in favor of a former love, Estrilidis, the mother 
of Sabrina. Milton changes the end of the story, to make it 
more poetical. According to his prose version, Guendolen 
makes war upon her husband, kills him, and throws, the queen 


174 


MILTON^S POEMS 


and her daughter into the river, ^^and, to have a monument of 
revenge, proclaims that the stream be henceforth called after 
the damsel’s name, which by length of time is changed now to 
Sabrina or Severn.” 

835. Aged Nereus’ hall: His dwelling in the ocean caves. 
Nereus is the wise ‘^old man of the sea,” father of the Nereids, 
or sea-nymphs. Here Milton mixes Greek and British mythol- 
ogy, a common recipe with him for making new poet-lore. 

838. Lavers: Baths. Asphodel (modern daffodil) is the 
immortal flower growing in the meadows of Elysium. 

839. Porch and inlet of each sense, etc.: So Hamlet’s ghost 
says he was poisoned {Hamlet, i, 64): “In the porches of my 
ears did pour The leprous distilment.” It is well to keep in 
mind the fact that Harvey published to the world his discovery of 
the circulation of the blood only six years before Comus was acted. 

841. Immortal change : Change to immortality. 

842. Goddess of the river: “She became the protecting 
deity of the river, as Lycidas of the shore off which he had met 
his death” (Hale). Cf. Lycidas, 183. 

845. Helping all urchin blasts, etc.: Remedying the blight- 
ing influences of urchins or goblins, and injuries caused by 
mischievous elves. The urchin was a hedgehog, the form svune- 
times assumed by evil spirits. Cf. Caliban’s tribulations, 
Tempest, ii, 2 , 4. 

846. Shrewd : Mischievous, wicked; originally shrew-ed, 
cursed. Bacon says in the Essays: “An ant is a shrewd thing in 
an orchard, or garden.” 

852. She can unlock, etc.: This feature of the legend is 
Milton’s invention, as neither Spenser nor old Geoffrey gives it. 

863. Loose train, etc. : The source and explanation of this 
line may possibly be contained in Todd’s quotation from 
Nash’s Terrors of the Night: “Their hair they wore loose, un- 
rolled about their shoulders, whose dangling amber trammels, 
reaching down beneath their knees, seem to drop balm on their 
delicious bodies.” Qualities of precious clearness and fragrance 
were associated with amber. Cf. Samson Agonistes, 720. 


NOTES 


175 


868. Great Oceanus: The ancients conceived of the ocean 
as a huge stream flowing round the earth, of which Oceanus 
was the presiding deity. 

870. Tethys : Wife of Oceanus, and mother of the river gods. 
The epithets in these lines, great Oceanus, earth-shaking Neptune, 
Tethys’ majestic pace, are from Homer and Hesiod. 

872. Carpathian wizard: Proteus, who had the power of 
assuming different shapes; he lived in the Carpathian Sea, 
and had a shepherd^s hook because he tended the ‘‘herds of 
loathly sea-calves^’ {Odyssey, iv, 385). In Vergil’s Georgies, 
iv, 387, he is called a seer, or wizard (vates). 

873. Scaly Triton : Son of ' Neptune, the lower part of whose 
body was a fish. He rode over the waves driving his sea- 
horses and blowing a conch-shell horn to raise or still the sea, 
at Neptune’s command. 

874. Soothsaying Glaucus : A Boeotian fisherman who was 
changed to a sea-god by Oceanus, regarded by fishermen and 
sailors as a prophet. 

875. Leucothea : Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, fled from 
her mad husband, and with her infant son plunged into the 
sea. Neptune made them sea-deities, giving to her a new 
nanl^- Leucothea, the white goddess, and to the son the name 
Pelaer- ion, who became the protecting deity of bays and harbors. 

876. Thetis : The most beautiful of the Nereids, mother of 
Achilles. Homer calls her “silver-footed.” Trench calls 
tinsel-slippered and other similar Miltonic epithets, “poems in 
miniature.” 

878. Sirens : See 1. 253 above, and note. Two of the Sirens 
were Parthenope and Ligea. The tomb was at Naples. Ligea’s 
golden comb suggests the mermaids of Northern mythology, as 
in Tennyson’s poem The Mermaid: 

“With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair,” etc. 

893. Azurn sheen: Azure brightness. Turkis is turquoise; 
literally, the Turkish-stone, because brought from Persia 
through Turkey. 


176 


MILTON^S POEMS 


897. Printless feet: Cf. Tempest, v, i, 34: “Ye that on the 
sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune.” 
The fancy in the next two lines is common property with the 
poets back to Vergil. Cf. ^neid, vii, 808; Pope’s Essay on 
Criticism, 373; Tennyson’s Talking Oak, 131. The pretty 
phrase velvet head is found in Fletcher’s Faithful Shepherdess, 
which Milton is thought to have had perilously in mind while 
writing this part of Comus: 

“See the dewdrops, how they kiss 
Every little flower that is, 

Hanging on their velvet heads.” 

914. Thrice : Charms were regularly “wound up” by threes 
or combinations of threes. Cf. Macbeth, i, 3 , 35. 

916. Marble venomed seat : The enchanted chair. 

921. Amphitrite: Wife of Neptune and queen of the sea. 

923. Anchises : Father of ^neas, who was fabled to be the 
grandfather of Brutus (828 above), founder of Britain, who was 
the grandfather of Sabrina. 

929. Thy tresses fair: “The foliage on thy banks” (Rolfe). 

933. Beryl : A precious stone of varied tints, one variety 
of which is the emerald. As it is not found in the Severn 
(any more than is gold), Milton probably took it from the 
foundations of the New Jerusalem {Revelations, xxi, 20). The 
extravagant praise of the Severn in this passage would naturally 
be agreeable to the people of Ludlow. 

934-937. The simplest treatment of these troublesome lines 
is to repeat crowned before With groves, and read upon thy banks 
after cinnamon. This will answer the grammatical needs 
fairly well. How do we justify Milton’s use of myrrh and 
cinnamon as native products of the Welsh marches? 

945-955. Not many furlongs thence, etc.: The reader should 
here keep in mind the place, the occasion, and the changes of 
stage scenery. 

958. Back, shepherds, etc.: The Spirit with the Brothers 
and the Lady here interrupt the rustic dancing, which began 
as the curtain rose. 


NOTES 


177 


959. Sunshine holiday; Cf. U Allegro, 98. From this line 
it appears to be morning, or daylight, when the Spirit and his 
companions return and find the townspeople engaged in their 
congratulatory sports. 

961. Other trippings: The more graceful dance in court 
guise, which begins at the close of the next speech. 

964. Dryades ; Wood nymphs, who were fond of making 
merry with Apollo, Mercury, and Pan. 

Afincing is moving with light and graceful steps, contrasted 
with the jig steps and rude duck and nod of the country folk. 

966. Noble Lord, etc.: “Imagine the cheering when Lawes, 
advancing with the three young ones, addressed this speech 
to the Earl and Countess of Bridgewater, they perhaps rising 
and bowing” (Masson). 

970. Timely : In good time. 

972. Assays ; Trials, experiences. 

975. This line epitomizes Comus and his followers, and with 
the preceding line expresses the whole moral scheme of the 
play. 

976. To the ocean, etc.: Masson notes that these four lines 
are in the very rhythm and rhyme of the first four of Ariel’s 
song in the Tempest, v, i, 88. 

982. Of Hesperus, etc. : See 393 above, and note. 

984. Crisped shades : The foliage curled or rippled by the 
wind. Cf. “crisped brooks” (ruffled by the wind). Paradise 
Lost, iv, 237. 

985. Spruce ; Neatly attired. Spruce was originally Pruce, 
or Prussia, which apparently was once regarded as a land of 
luxury and fashion; spruce fir was Prussian fir. See Cen, 
Die. 

986. Graces: See U Allegro, 15, note. The Hours (Horae) 
are the goddesses of the seasons, and gate-keepers of Olympus, 
who open and shut the cloud-gates, i.e., control the storms 
and regulate the seasons. The “Dance of the Hours” was a 
symbol of the course of the seasons. Cf. Paradise Lost, iv, 
266-268. 


178 


MILTON^S POEMS 


990. Cedarn : Of cedar, like azurn, 893 above, and silvern, 
leathern, etc. 

992. Iris: Goddess of the rainbow, and the bow is her 
purfled (fringed, or embroidered) scarf. 

993. Blow: Used transitively, i.e., cause to blow. 

998. If your ears be true : If you are able to perceive the 
symbolic or purified meaning of the old myths. Cf. Paradise 
Lost, 589-629: Love ^Gs the scale By which to Heavenly Love 
thou may’st ascend,” etc. 

999. Adonis : Adonis was mortally wounded by a wild boar. 
Milton, however, has him recover, for as a god of nature he 
typifies the death of vegetation and its return to life each year. 
Cf. Hymn on Nativity, 204, note. 

1002. Assyrian queen: Astarte, identified with Aphrodite 
or Venus, who loved Adonis. The worship of Venus came 
to Greece from the East. Cf. Paradise Lost, i, 438-452. 

1004. Celestial Cupid : Cupid is made the type of heavenly 
pure love. Advanced goes with But far above. 

1005. Psyche : In the story of Cupid and Psyche (see Class. 
Die.), Psyche, as a punishment for her curiosity, is made to 
wander from place to place, persecuted by Venus; finally she 
becomes immortal and is united with Cupid forever. The myth 
allegorizes the discipline of the soul (Greek ^vxh, the soul), 
in its pursuit of perfected or celestial bliss. In his Apology for 
Smectymnuus, Milton speaks of that Love which is truly so, 
whose charming cup is only virtue,” and whose first and 
chiefest office begins and ends in the soul, producing those happy 
twins of her divine generation. Knowledge and Virtue.” This 
was written eight years after Comus. 

1010. Two blissful twins : Compare Spenser’s treatment of the 
myth. Faerie Queene, iii, 6, 50, where but one child is born. 
Pleasure. 

1015. Bowed welkin : The domed sky. At the horizon the 
curve of the arch seems to bend slow. 

1017. Corners : Horns of the moon (Latin cornu, horn). 
So Macbeth, iii, 5, 23: ^^Upon the corner of the moon,” etc. 


NOTES 


179 


1021. Sphery chime: The chiming spheres, music of the 
spheres. Beyond the spheres is the empyrean or true heaven, 
the abode of pure spirits. 

1022. Or if Virtue, etc.: These closing lines epitomize the 
teaching of the whole poem and express Milton’s sublime 
confidence in the power of moral and spiritual purity. When 
passing through Geneva on his return from Italy in 1639, he 
was asked to write in an autograph album, and wrote this 
closing couplet, adding the Latin verse “Ccelum non animum 
muto dum trans mare curro.” Upon this Masson remarks: ‘^It 
was as if he said, ‘Wherever I go, the sentiment of the last two 
lines of my Comus is always my fixed belief.’” This album is 
now in the Sumner Collection at Harvard College. 

LYCIDAS 

Learned Friend : This friend was Milton’s college com- 
panion at Cambridge, Edward King, son of Sir John King, 
Secretary for Ireland. He entered Christ’s College in 1626, - 
at the age of fourteen; in 1630 he was made a Fellow, and in 
1633 received the degree of M. A. He remained at the university 
to study for the Church. In the long vacation of 1637 he sailed 
from Chester to visit his friends in Ireland; the ship foundered 
off the Welsh coast and nearly all on board perished. 

Of Milton’s personal relations with King we know nothing 
except what is implied in the poem. He seems to have been 
much esteemed at the university, and soon after his death a 
volume of memorial poems was published at Cambridge, to which 
Lycidas was Milton’s contribution, the only poem in the collec- 
tion of any literary value. The poem was reprinted in 1645 
in the first collected edition of Milton’s poems, and it was then 
that the prefatory note, or argument, was added to the title. 

1 . Yet once more : Milton had written nothing since Comus, 
three years before, and it is supposed that he had determined 
to await the maturing of his faculties, through study and the 
gracious influences of the “Cherub Contemplation,” before 


180 


MILTOWS POEMS 


attempting another important poem. But the sad occasion 
of his college associate’s death forces him to anticipate his 
mellowing year and pluck more of the unripe fruit of his genius. 

2. Myrtles brown : Brown is dusky or somber in color. It 
. is Horace’s epithet for the myrtle, “ pulla myrtus,” Odes, i, 25 , 18 . 
The laurel, myrtle, and ivy were associated with Apollo and the 
Muses by the classic poets and are therefore used here symboli- 
cally for poetry; all three are never sere, that is, are evergreen. 

3. Harsh and crude : Unripe and sour, epithets hardly applica- 
ble to the poems he had already written; but Milton kad imposed 
upon himself the severest tests of poetic excellence, and Lycidas 
itself clearly shows a transitional maturing of his powers, in prep- 
aration for that loftier flight which he was contemplating. 

4. Forced fingers rude : A noun supported by an adjective 
on either side was a favorite arrangement with Milton. Often 
the second adjective qualifies the idea contained in the first 
adjective and noun together. Cf. ^^Sad occasion dear,” 6 below, 
and 42 below; also U Allegro, 40 and 134. 

5. Shatter: Scatter. It is captious criticism that finds 
fault with mellowing year as being inconsistent with evergreen 
laurel and ivy. These words simply mean poetry, or poetic 
fruit, of which alone Milton is thinking, and mellowing year 
simply means the due season for gathering this poetic fruit. 

6 . Dear : Used in the intensive sense of extreme; or a high 
degree of the quality implied; as in Hamlet, i, 2 , 182: “Would I 
had met my dearest foe in heaven”; also As You Like It, i, 3 , 
34, and “deare constraint,” Faerie Queene, i, i, f)3. 

8 . Lycidas : A name taken from the pastoral poetry of 
Theocritus and Vergil. 

10. He knew himself to sing : He knew how to write poetry; 
a Latinism. With build the lofty rhyme, Bell compares Horace’s 
“condere carmen,” to build a song {Epistles, i, 3). Milton 
seems to have looked upon King’s poetry with the kindly eye 
of friendship; the only poems that survive are Latin poems, 
which Masson thinks “not very poetical or elegant.” The 
original manuscript shows “he well knew” for “he knew.” 


NOTES 


181 


13. Welter: Be tossed about by the waves, exposed to the 
parching wind. 

14. Melodious tear: A pretty phrase for elegiac poems. 
Masson notes that the sound of this word tear is “the dominant 
rhyme" of the prologue, or introductory paragraph. 

15. The sacred well : The Pierian Spring at the foot of Mount 
Olympus, the seat of Jove. Here the Muses, daughters of Zeus 
and Mnemosyne, were born and dwelt, although another of their 
sacred haunts was Mount Helicon in Boeotia, with its spring, 
Aganippe, which is also called by the poets “the sacred well." 

17. Somewhat loudly sweep the string : This would seem to 
mean: Sing in a lofty tone worthy of the noble theme. 

19. Muse : In the unusual sense of poet. 

20. Lucky words: Words expressing good wishes. “Let 
me, with whatever reluctance, write this memorial poem now, 
if I would hope that, when I am dead, some one may write 
with kindly interest of me" (Masson). Compare this passage 
with the similar fancy of Gray, at the end of the Elegy. 

22. My sable shroud : My black coffin, the same as my 
destined urn above. 

23. Selfsame hill: Christ’s College, Cambridge. The 
pastoral idea is carried out consistently. The college com- 
panions are shepherds, and their college duties and pleasures are 
described in the language of the common occupations of 
shepherds. 

26. Opening eyelids of the Morn : “The eyelids of the morn- 
ing" is a marginal reading oiJob, iii, 9, for “dawning of the 
day" in the text. Warton quotes (beshrew his eyes!) Middle- 
ton’s Game at Chesse (1625) : 

“like a pearl 

Dropt from the opening eyelids of the Morn 
Upon the bashful rose.’’ 

Henry More, Sylvester, and Sophocles {Antigone, 103) “used 
the same phrase,” says Browne. The Cambridge manuscript 
has “glimmering" for “opening.” 

27-28. Heard what time, etc.: Heard the gray fly at the 


182 


MILTON'S POEMS 


time when she winds, etc. Note the pronunciation of heard, 
still found occasionally among old-fashioned people. The 
grayfly is the trumpet-fly, and its sharp humming is heard in 
the heat of the day; hence its mltry horn. 

29. Battening : Feeding or fattening. 

30. The star that rose at evening: Evidently the evening 
star is in the poet’s mind, as in Comus, 93, even though it 
‘^appears, not rises,” as one editor complains. The original 
manuscript has even-star bright.” 

32. Rural ditties: The poetic attempts of the two young 
friends. 

33. Tempered, etc.: Attuned to the shepherd’s pipe. Cf. 
Comus, 345, note. 

34. Rough Satyrs danced and Fauns: ‘^Miscellaneous 
Cambridge undergraduates” (Masson). In Greek mythology 
the Satyrs are woodland deities with puck noses, bristling hair, 
goatlike ears, and short tails; they tend cattle, dance, frolic 
with the Nymphs, play upon the pipe, and revel with Dionysus 
(Bacchus). The Romans identified them with their Fauni, 
half men and half goats, with horns and cloven feet, the chief 
of whom was Faunus or Pan. 

36. Old Damoetas: Probably William Chappell, Milton’s 
first tutor. Masson, however, suggests “Joseph Meade or some 
other well-remembered Fellow of Christ’s.” The pastoral 
name occurs in Theocritus, Vergil, and Sidney’s Arcadia. 

40. Gadding: Straggling, wandering. Cf. Bacon: “Envy 
is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not 
keep home.” 

46. Canker: The canker-worm. Cf. Midsummer Night's 
Dream, ii, 2 , 3: “Kill cankers in the musk-rose buds.” 

47. Taint- worm : A parasite worm, or insect larva. Accord- 
ing to Sir Thomas Browne, a small red spider, called a “taint,” 
which is “by the country people accounted a deadly poison to 
cows and horses.” 

48. Whitethorn: The hawthorn. Cf. L' Allegro, 68. 

50. Where were ye, Nymphs: The protecting deities (as 


NOTES 


183 


Milton seems to make these Greco-British Nymphs) of the sea 
and adjacent shore should have been there to save Lycidas. 
The passage is closely reminiscent of Theocritus, Idylls, i, 
66-69: ‘‘Where, ah! where were ye when Daphnis was languish- 
ing; ye Nymphs, where were ye? for surely ye dwelt not by the 
great stream of the river Anapus, nor on the watch-tower of 
Etna, nor by the sacred water of Acis,” etc. 

52. The steep : Perhaps Penmaenmawr, opposite Anglesey, 
was in mind, or Kerig-y-Druidion in Denbigshire, a burial place 
of the Druids. The Druids were the priests, lawgivers, and 
bards of the ancient Celts. 

54. Mona: The island of Anglesey, once covered with 
woods, the favorite residence of the Druids. 

55. Deva : The Dee, down which King sailed from Chester. 
Called wizard because of the many legends and superstitions 
associated with it. In Drayton’s Polyolbion it is called the 
“hallowed^’ and the “ominous flood.” Spenser makes its 
valley the early home of King Arthur, when the enchanter 
Merlin was his teacher {Faerie Queene, i, p, 4). Milton has 
“ancient hallowed Dee” in A Vacation Exercise, 98. 

56. I fondly dream: I say to myself “If only ye had been 
there,” but I foolishly dream, for even Orpheus himself could 
not be saved. 

58. The Muse : Calliope, mother of Orpheus. For the first 
part of the Orpheus myth, see U Allegro, 149, note. Having 
offended the Thracian women who were celebrating the orgies 
of Bacchus — the rout that made the hideous roar — he was torn 
in pieces by them and his head, thrown into the river Hebrus, 
was carried to the island of Lesbos. Cf. “Nor could the Muse 
defend her son” {Paradise Lost, vii, 32-38). Lines 58-63 in 
the Cambridge manuscript are : 

“What could the golden-haired Calliope 
For her enchanting son, 

When she beheld (the gods far-sighted be) 

His gory scalp roll down the Thracian Sea?” 

In the margin the last two lines are changed to the following: 


184 


MILTON'S POEMS 


^^Whom universal nature might lament, 

And Heaven and Hell deplore, 

When his divine head down the stream was sent, 
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.” 

64. What boots it : What avails it, of what use is it. In 
Paradise Lost the modern form incessant is used instead of un- 
cessant. 

65. Homely, slighted, shepherd’s trade : Pastoral language 
for the humble profession of the poet. 

66. Strictly meditate, etc. : Devote one’s self to the work of 
the poet with unremitting zeal and study. Thankless Muse, 
unappreciated, profitless poetry. 

67. Were it not better, etc.: Would it not be better sense 
to live a life of ease and pleasure, as others are accustomed 
to do. We now find use, in this sense, only in the preterit. 
Amaryllis and Necera are stock names of shepherdesses in 
pastoral poetry. 

One is much inclined to see in this passage a comparison 
of Milton’s lofty ideal and purpose in poetry with the ideals 
of his contemporaries, Herrick, Suckling, Lovelace, Donne, 
and others, who were writing elegant trifles about dimpled 
cheeks and cherry lips to please the fashion and win the applause 
of the hour. In one of his prose pamphlets he seems to allude 
to these poets, when he says that his own work shall not ‘^be 
raised from the heat of youth or the vapors of wine; like that 
which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or 
the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite.” 

70. Clear: Pure, noble. Cf. Paradise Regained, iii, 25. 

71. That last infirmity, etc.: The desire for praise and 
renown is a weakness, but a noble weakness, which spurs all 
great minds to lofty and self-denying efforts. Milton’s friend, 
Sir Henry Wotton, says of King James I: “I will not deny his 
appetite of glory, which generous minds do ever latest part 
from.” Bell quotes Massinger: ‘‘The last weakness wise men 
put off.” The idea occurs in Tacitus, iv, 5. 

75. Blind Fury : Milton knew as well as his learned editors 


NOTi;S 


185 


that he was confusing the Furies with the Fates, intending to 
signify, undoubtedly, that Atropos, with her abhorred shears 
cuts the thin-spun thread of life before the reward of labor, the 
fair guerdon, is found, with the blind relentlessness of the Furies. 

76. But not the praise : Fate may cut off life, but not praise 
and honor. 

77. Phoebus: Apollo, god of poetry, who admonishes the 
poet for his repining. Touched my trembling ears seems to be a 
memory of Vergil’s Eclogues, vi, 3: “Cynthius aurem vellit et 
admonuit.” 

78-84. True fame is not found in this world, nor is it set off 
by the glittering tinsel of common praise and flattery, nor 
does it lie in large notoriety, but lives and flourishes through 
the infallible verdict of Heaven itself. Foil is a metallic leaf 
placed under a jewel in the setting to increase its brilliancy. 
Cf. Paradise Regained, iii, 60. 

81. Pure eyes: Cf. Habakkuk, i, 13: God is ^‘of purer eyes 
than to behold evil.” 

83. Pronounces lastly : Gives final judgment. 

85. Arethuse : A fountain in the island of Ortygia, near 
Sicily, representing the pastoral poetry of Theocritus, who 
was a Sicilian, as the river Hindus represents the pastoral 
poetry of Vergil, who was born at Mantua, on its banks; hence 
honored and crowned with vocal reeds, as the pastoral pipes 
were made of reeds, as well as of the oat. Sliding, gliding, as in 
Hymn on the Nativity, 47, and Comus, 892. 

87. That strain: The digression in regard to the poet’s 
labor and reward, especially Apollo’s voice, is in a loftier tone 
than the pastoral music to which he now returns. 

89. Neptune, who is presumably responsible for the death of 
Lycidas, sends Triton, Herald of the Sea, in his behalf to make 
a judicial investigation of the case. The suspected subjects all 
plead ^^not guilty.” 

96. Hippo tades : ^olus, god of the winds, son of Hippotes, 
whose duty was to keep the winds confined in a huge cave 
I (Vergil’s ^neid, i, 50). 


186 


MILTON^ S POEMS 


99. Panope : One of the Nereids, the sisters who were play- 
ing upon the surface of a calm sea — level brine. 

101. Built in the eclipse: According to a very ancient 
superstition, anything done under an eclipse bore a curse. 
The witch-broth in Macbeth (iv, i, 27) contained slips of 
yew Slivered in the moon’s eclipse.” 

103. Camus. Presiding genius of the River Cam, and of the 
university; reverend sire suggests the antiquity of the university; 
went is ‘^simply passed along’' (Hales). 

104-106. ^^He comes attired in a mantle of the hairy river- 
weed that floats down the Cam; his bonnet is of the sedge of 
that river, which exhibits peculiar markings, something like 
the hi hi (^alas! alas!’) which the Greeks detected on the 
leaves of the hyacinth” (Masson). For “Inwrought” the 
original manuscript has “scrawled o’er,” with “Inwrought” in 
the margin. 

106. Sanguine flower: The beautiful boy Hyacinthus was 
accidentally killed by Apollo during a game of quoits. Apollo, 
in his grief, caused the flower to spring up from the blood, with 
the words of woe marked on its petals. See Ovid’s Metamor- 
phoses, X, 210. 

107. Pledge : Child. Cf. At a Solemn Music, I. 

109. The Pilot of the Galilean Lake : Saint Peter, the head 
of the Church {Matthew, iv, 18) and especially delegated by 
Christ to be shepherd of his flock {John, xxi, 15-17). For 
'the keys he bore, see Matthew, xvi, 19. The metals twain is 
Milton’s fancy. Cf. Comus, 13. It must be remembered in 
connection with this passage that young King was preparing to 
enter the Church. 

112. Mitered locks: The miter is the headdress worn by a 
bishop. Milton is here thinking of St. Peter as the first Bishop 
of the Church. 

113-131. “These nineteen lines of the poem are in some 
respects the most memorable passage in it. They are an out- 
burst, in 1637, or when Milton was twenty-nine years of age, 
of that feeling about the state of the English Church under 


NOTES 


187 


Laud’s rule which, four years afterwards, found more direct 
and as vehement expression in his prose pamphlets” (Mas- 
son). 

114. Enow: Enough, as in Comus, 780. 

115. Climb into the fold: Cf. John, x, 1. Milton had much 
to say of the corrupt clergy afterwards. In the sonnet To 
the Lord General Cromwell they are “hireling wolves, whose 
Gospel is their maw.” One of his pamphlets is entitled The 
likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church. 

118. Worthy bidden guest: The conscientious clergy, who 
have other _ care than merely to scramble for the richly endowed 
church positions — the shearer's feast. 

1 19. Blind mouths : They are greedy, gluttonous, all mouth, 
as it were; moreover they are blind leaders, blind even to their 
true shame. 

120. Aught else the least : Anything else, even the least. 

122. What recks it them: What do they care? Are sped, 
are provided for. Cf. Mercutio’s grim use of the word, “I am 
sped” {Romeo and Juliet, hi, i, 94). 

123. Lean and flashy songs : Worthless and showy religious 
instruction. 

124. Scrannel: Squeaking. A word apparently coined by 
Milton, though allied to scranny or scrawny, thin. Note the 
skilfully devised harshness of this line. 

126. Swoln with wind, etc.: False and unwholesome 
doctrines. See Ruskin’s comments on this passage in Sesame 
and Lilies. 

128. The grim wolf: “Undoubtedly the Church of Rome, 
the numerous private secessions to which in England in Laud’s 
time were a subject of alarm and complaint among the Puritans” 
(Masson) 

130. That two-handed engine, etc.: These two lines have 
given much trouble. The general meaning is certainly that 
retribution is about to come upon the corrupt clergy, but 
what specific instrument of retribution Milton had in mind is 
far from certain. Masson thinks it is the two houses of Parlia- 


188 


MILTON^S POEMS 


merit, ‘Hhe agency by which, three or four years afterwards, 
the doors of the Church of England were dashed in.” Others 
think it refers to the headsman’s ax, wielded by two hands, 
by which eight years later Laud was executed. Or it may be 
the ax ^4aid to the root of the tree” {Matthew, iii, 10), or the 
^Hwo-edged sword” of Revelations, i, 16, and ii, 12, 16. In the 
treatise Of Reformation, Milton speaks of ^Hhe ax of God’s 
reformation hewing at the old and hollow trunk of Papacy.” 
There is also the sword which St. Michael used against Satan 
“with huge two-handed sway” {Paradise Lost, vi, 251). If we 
must have a literal interpretation, the first seems the most 
significant, but, as Thurber pertinently remarks, the poet “may 
have meant to combine certain scriptural expressions into a 
mysteriously suggestive and oracular prediction, without hav- 
ing in view any single and definite possibility.” 

132. Alpheus : The lover of Arethusa, who was transformed 
into a river that he might pursue her under the ocean to her 
Sicilian refuge. See 1. 85. Cf. Shelley’s poem Arethusa. 
The poet, here returning a second time to the pastoral strain, 
invokes the two, united in the fountain Arethuse (1. 85), as the 
Muse of pastoral poetry. 

Dread voice is the voice of St. Peter, that silenced the pas- 
toral voice. 

136. Use : Are accustomed to dwell. The construction is, 
whispers of shades, etc., dwell. 

138. Swart star : Sirius, the dog star, which shines during 
“dog days,” making the face and the fields swarthy or brown. 
Milton frequently transfers an epithet from the effect to the 
cause. Sparely is sparingly, rarely. 

141. Vernal flowers: The critics have objected that some 
of the flowers mentioned are summer or autumn flowers; but 
Milton was writing poetically, ^not botanically. 

142. Rathe : Early, the obsolete positive from which we 
have rather. Forsaken by the sun, because it blooms so early. 
Milton first wrote unwedded, suggested probably by Winter's 
Tale, iv, 4, 122: 


NOTES 


189 


*^pale primroses 

That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength.” 

Compare the opening lines of The Death of a Fair Infant: 

^‘Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,” etc. 

142-151. ‘^This is the most exquisite flower-and-color pas- 
sage in all Milton’s poetry. His manuscript shows that he 
brought it to perfection by additions and afterthoughts” 
(Masson). See Ruskin’s criticism of the passage, Modern 
Painters, iii, 2 , 3. Compare the similar passage in Spenser’s 
Shepherd's Calendar {April): 

Bring hether the pincke and purple Cullambine,” etc. 

The passage reads as follows in the Cambridge manuscript: 

Bring the rathe primrose that unwedded dies, 
Coloring the pale cheek of unenjoyed love 
And that sad flower that strove 
To write his own woes on the vermeil grain: 

Next add Narcissus that still weeps in vain, 

The woodbine, and the pansy freakt with jet, 

The glowing violet. 

The cowslip wan that hangs his pensive head. 

And every bud that Sorrow’s livery wears; 

Let daffadillies fill their cups with tears; 

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 

To strew,” etc. 

‘^Sorrow’s livery” was changed to ^^sad escutcheon,” and then 
to the present form. 

143. Tufted crowtoe : A plant so called from its claw- 
shaped spreading pods, the Lotus corniculatus. 

144. Freaked : Variegated, spotted. Cf. Henry V,\, 2 , 49 : 
freckled cowslip.” 

146. Well-attired woodbine : The fair-flowered honeysuckle, 
*^well head-dressed, as it were,” the words tire and attire being 
formerly used for headdress. 

151. Laureate hearse: The bier, or coffin, decked with 
laurel, as a token of the dead poet. 


190 


MILTON^S POEMS 


152. For so, etc.: For it affords a little relief to our sorrow 
thus to dally with the fancy, that we are strewing his hearse 
with flowers, while in reality his body is washed far away. 

154. Shores and sounding seas wash, etc.: Understand 
after shores some such verb as throw hack. The body is washed 
ashore here and there and hurled back into the sea, as it were, 
by the shores. For ‘^Shores^^ the Cambridge manuscript has 
floods.’’ 

158. Monstrous world : The deep sea peopled with monsters. 

159. Moist vows : Tearful prayers. 

160. The fable of Bellerus : Literally, Land’s End in Corn- 
wall, called by the Romans Bellerium, from which Milton coined 
Bellerus. He first wrote Corineus, the name of a fabled giant 
for whom Cornwall was named. 

161. Guarded mount: St. Michael’s Mount, near Land’s 
End. On the craggy summit is St. Michael’s Chair, in which 
according to legend the vision or apparition of the Archangel 
was once seen, by whom the place was guarded. 

162. Namancos : A town in the province of Gallicia, Spain 
(put down in Mercator’s Atlas, 1636). Near it is the city of 
Bayona, with its stronghold or castle. “It was a boast of the 
Cornish people that there was a direct line of sea-view from 
Land’s End passing France altogether and hitting no European 
land till it reached Spain.” (Masson). 

163. Look homeward, Angel : The Archangel, who has ever 
looked toward Spain, is besought now to turn and look sorrow- 
fully upon the home waters where the body of Lycidas is 
weltering. 

164. O ye dolphins : An allusion to the story of Arion, the 
Greek singer, who when thrown overboard by the pirates was 
borne ashore on the backs of dolphins, whom he had charmed 
with his music. 

These two lines, 163-4, says Masson, “to me seem the worst 
in the poem, and the most like a ^conceit.’” 

165. Compare this transition and close with the close of 
Spenser’s November Eclogue {Shepherd's Calendar), and with 


NOTES 


191 


the close of Milton’s Latin Elegy on the death of his friend 
Diodati, Epitaphium Damonis, in Cowper’s translation. 

167. Watery floor: Surface of the sea. Cf. ^^level brine,” 
98 above. 

168. Day-star: The sun. Cf. ‘Miurnal star,” Paradise 
Lost, X, 1069. 

169. Repairs : Revives. 

170. Tricks his beams, etc.: Dresses, adorns his beams 
with golden splendor. 

173. Through the dear might, etc : See Matthew, xiv, 22-32. 
^^Note the appositeness to the whole subject of the poem in 
this reference to Christ’s power over the waters” (Masson). 

176. Unexpressive : Inexpressible, inexpressibly sweet. Cf. 
Hymn on Nativity, 116, note. For nuptial song, see Revelations, 
xix, 7-9. For “And hears” the Cambridge manuscript has 
“Listening.” 

179. Sweet societies: Cf. “fellowships of joy” {Paradise 
Lost, xi, 80). 

181. Wipe the tears, etc.: See Isaiah, xxv, 8; Revelations, 
vii, 17. 

183. The Genius of the shore : Milton has just expressed 
the Christian conception of Lycidas’s eternal state; he now 
reverts to a pagan idea, common in Latin poetry, that represents 
the spirit of a drowned person as becoming the guardian spirit 
of the locality, and ever good, i. e., propitious, to other wanderers. 
Cf. II Penseroso, 153, 154. 

184. In thy large recompense : As a large recompense to 
thee. 

186-193. These closing lines, forming a distinct stanza, are 
a kind of Epilogue, in which the poet speaks in his own person, 
as it were, and comments upon the elegy now completed. 

186. Uncouth: Rustic; originally unknown, strange. It 
seems rather fanciful to interpret this as a self-depreciating 
epithet in the sense of obscure, as well as out of harmony with 
the context. 

188. Sounded the notes of tender and varied music, in allu- 


192 


MlLTON^S POEMS 


jsion to the changing moods of the poem. Sto'ps are the holes 
in the pipe for the fingers, ventages,” Hamlet calls them. 
The quill (Latin, calamus) is the reed or shepherd's pipe. 

189. Doric lay: Pastoral song. The Greek pastoral poets 
wrote in the Doric dialect. 

190. Stretched out all the hills : Lengthened the shadows of 
the hills. 

192. Twitched his mantle blue : Drew it tightly about him. 
Blue is the common color of the shepherd’s dress. 

193. To-morrow, etc : Cf. Fletcher’s Purple Island, vi, 77: 

To-morrow shall ye feast in pastures new.” 

The attempt is generally made, with too much emphasis 
it would seem, to find autobiographic hints in this closing line, 
as, for example, an allusion to his Italian journey that followed 
soon after, or an allusion to the great purpose, already in mind, 
of writing an English epic. Masson regards it as “a peculiarly 
picturesque ending, in which Milton announces that he is passing 
on to other occupations.” 

EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATIC POET, 

W. SHAKSPERE 

This poem appeared among the commendatory poems 
printed in the second folio edition of Shakspere, 1632, bear- 
ing no signature. When Milton collected his poems for pub- 
lication in 1645, he included these verses with the title ^^On 
Shakspear, 1630.” From this date and the wording of the 
first line, it has been inferred that there was some movement 
in London that year for the erection of a monument to Shak- 
spere. The suggestion, however, may have come from Ben 
Jonson’s famous eulogy in the first folio, 1623: 

^^Thou art a monument without a tomb,” etc. 

And we are sure that Milton was at this time an ardent ad- 
mirer of Shakspere, and it is an interesting coincidence that 
this should be the first of his poems to appear in print. 


NOTES 


193 


4. Star-ypointing : Pointing to the stars. The y (German, 
ge) belongs properly only to the past participle. Cf. Hymn 
on Nativity, 155, note. 

8 . Livelong: For this word Milton first printed lasting. 
Which is the better? 

9. Slow-endeavoring art: “A reference to Shakspere’s 
extreme ease and fluency in composition, as attested by his 
fellow-players. Heminge and Condell, the editors of the First 
Folio: ‘His mind and hand went together: And what he thought 
he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from 
him a blot in his papers’ ” (Masson). Milton studiously revised 
and improved his work. 

11 . Unvalued: Invaluable. Cf. Richard III, i, 4 , 27: 
“Unvalued jewels.” 


. SONNETS 
To the Nightingale 

3-7. With fresh hope, etc.: According to old superstition, 
to hear the nightingale before the cuckoo was a token of good 
luck in the affairs of love. Cf. The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, 
attributed to Chaucer, or Wordsworth’s modernized version of 
the poem. 

9. Bird of hate : The cuckoo. Other poets have a more 
cordial feeling for the cuckoo. See Wordsworth’s two poems 
To the Cuckoo and The Cuckoo at Laverna. 

The nightingale poems of other English poets should be 
compared with this sonnet, as Drummond of Hawthornden’s To 
the Nightingale, Lady Winchilsea’s To the Nightingale, Keats’s 
Ode to a Nightingale, Wordsworth’s “ O Nightingale ! thou 
surely art,” Shelley’s Woodman and the Nightingale, and Cole- 
ridge’s The Nightingale. 

For other descriptions of the nightingale in Milton’s poems 
see II Penseroso, 56-64; Comus, 234; Paradise Lost, iv, 598-603; 
vii, 433-436. 


194 


MILTOWS POEMS 


12. Delphic : Oracular; deep with wisdom, like the oracles 
of Delphi. 

14. Dost make us marble, etc. : “ Dost change us into marble 

by the over-effort of thought to which thou compellest us’’ 
(Masson). 

15. Sepulchered : Accented on the second syllable. 

On his Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-three 

This sonnet was inclosed in a letter to a friend who apparently 
had remonstrated with Milton for continuing his fruitless life 
at the university and withholding himself from the Church, for 
which he was supposed to be preparing. He answered that 
he was restrained by a ‘^Sacred reverence and religious ad- 
visement, not taking thought [overanxious] of being late, so it 
gave advantage to be more fit,"' and added: That you may 
see that I am something suspicious of myself, and do take 
notice of a helatedness in me, I am the bolder to send 

you some of my nightward thoughts some little while ago, 
because they come in not altogether unfitly, made up in a 
Petrarchian stanza which I told you of.” 

4. Shew’th: The rhyme is with youth, truth, enduHh, in- 
dicating the old pronunciation of the word. 

8. Timely-happy: ‘^Wise with the wisdom proportionate 
to one’s years” (Thurber). 

10. Even : Equal, proportioned to. 

13. All is: ^^He had said, ^It shall be’; now he corrects 
himself — ^nay, all my life is so already, if I have grace to use 
it as in God’s sight’ ” (Browne). 

To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Airs 

One of the copies of this sonnet in Milton’s own hand bears 
the inscription, ^^To my Friend, Mr. Henry Lawes, Feb. 9, 
1645.” This was eleven years after Milton had collaborated 
with this friend in the production of Comus. Lawes was the 
most distinguished composer of his period in England, and had 


NOTES 


195 


the honor of being ‘^Gentleman of the King’s Chappel and one of 
His Majesties private Musick ” to Charles I. He composed 
the music for the celebrated Inns of Court Masque, set to 
music the poems of Waller, Carew, and other cavalier poets, 
and was the author of the anthem for the Coronation of Charles 
II. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

4. With Midas’ ears: In the musical contest between Pan 
and Apollo, Midas acted as umpire and decided in favor of Pan, 
whereupon Apollo changed his unmusical ears to ass’s ears 
(Ovid’s Metamorphoses, xi, 175). 

Committing, setting at variance, confounding; from the Latin 
phrase committere pugiles, to match gladiators. 

9. * Lend her wing : Many editions have send, apparently a 
typographical error in the edition of 1673. The word is lend 
in Milton’s original manuscript. 

10. Phoebus’ quire : The contemporary poets, whose songs 
he set to music. 

11. Or story: This sonnet was first published with other 
poetical tributes in Lawes’s Choice Psalms, 1648. In a marginal 
note Milton explains this allusion: ‘‘The story of Ariadne set 
by him to musick” — the story being by the poet Cartwright. 

13. Casella : In Purgatory Dante meets his old friend, the 
musician Casella, and asks him to sing one of the love songs in 
which he excelled on earth, and Casella sings one of the poet’s 
own songs {Purgatorio, ii, 76-114). 

14. Milder: Compared with the shades of the Inferno, 
from which Dante has just come when he meets Casella. 


On the Lord General Fairfax 

This sonnet and the next two were first printed in Phillips’s 
“ Life of Milton,” in 1694, twenty years after the poet’s death, 
being omitted from the edition cf 1673 because, as Masson 
surmises, they “savored too much of pre-Restoration politics 
to be allowable.” The siege of Colchester, June 15 to August 
28, 1648, was one of the principal events of the Civil War. 


196 


MlLTON^S POEMS 


Milton expresses,” says Masson, ^Hhe general feeling of the 
hour, not only about the particular victory, but also about the 
character of Fairfax, and England’s further hopes from him.” 

6. New rebellions : Royalist risings for the second Civil 
War. The Hydra was a monstrous dragon with nine heads, 
each of which when cut off was succeeded by two more; the 
destruction of the monster was one of the ^ twelve labors’^ of 
Hercules. 

7. False North: The Scotch sent an army into England to 
support the Royalist risings, which was regarded as a breach of 
the Solemn League and Covenant between the two nations. 

8. Imp their serpent wings : A term of falconry. To im'p a 
hawk’s wing is to repair its broken feathers. Cf. Richard //, 
i, 1, 292. 


To the Lord General Cromwell ^ May, 1652 

Cromwell had established the political and military strength 
of the Commonwealth, and now the people looked to him to 
settle Church matters, which were in chaos. This sonnet was, 
says Masso , “a call to Cromwell to save England from a 
mercenary ministry of any denomination, or a new eccle- 
siastical tyranny of any form. ... Yet the sonnet may stand 
as Milton’s tribute of respect to Cromwell on the whole.” 

7. Darwen stream: A stream in Lancashire, the scene of 
Cromwell’s three days’ battle, in which he defeated the in- 
vading Scots under the . Duke of Hamilton. See Cromwell’s 
Letters and Speeches (Carlyle’s ed.), letter 64. 

8. Dunbar field: Cromwell. secured a crushing defeat of the 
Scots in the battle of Dunbar, September 3, 1650. 

9. Worcester’s laureate wreath : Cromwell’s decisive victory 
in the battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, was called his 
‘^crowning mercy.” 

14. Hireling workers : Milton here inveighs against the Pres- 
byterian clergy, as in Lycidas against the Episcopal clergy. 


NOTES 


197 


On the Late Massacre in Piedmont 

The slaughter of the Waldenses in the valley of Piedmont, in 
1655, was ordered by the Duke of Savoy, upon their refusal to 
become Roman Catholics. England was horrified by the event; 
a relief fund of £40,000 was raised; andCromwefi’s remonstrance 
sent to foreign governments was so vigorous as to bring the 
persecution to an end. “Milton’s sonnet,” says Masson, “is 
his private and more tremendous expression in verse of the 
feeling he expressed publicly, in Cromwell’s name, in his Latin 
State Papers.” 

“From this sonnet,” says Pattison, “we may learn that the 
poetry of a poem is lodged somewhere else than in its matter, or 
its thoughts, or its imagery, or its words. Our heart is here 
taken by storm, but not by any of these things. The poet hath 
breathed on us, and we have received his inspiration. In this 
sonnet is realized Wordsworth’s definition of poetry. ‘ The spon- 
taneous overflow of powerful feeling.’ ” 

1. Whose bones lie scattered, etc.: “Many were butchered, 
others were taken away in chains, and hundreds of families 
were driven for refuge to the mountains covered with snow, 
to live there miserably, or perish with cold and hunger.” 

3. Who kept thy truth, etc.: The Waldenses were believed 
to have kept up the traditions of primitive Christianity from 
the time of the Apostles. 

10. Their martyred blood, etc.: An allusion to the saying of 
Tertullian: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” 

12. The triple Tyrant : The Pope, with his triple crown. 

14. Babylonian woe : The mythical Babylon of Revelation, 
xvii, xviii, was identified by the Puritans with the Church of 
Rome. 

On his Blindness 

“Again and again in Milton’s later writings, in prose and in 
verse, there are passages of the most touching sorrow over his 


7 ^ 

198 


/ 

MILTON’S POEMS 


yi3oii J 
(I ss37-S< 


darkened and desolate condition, with yet a tone of tlie most 
pious resignation, and now and then an outbreak of a proud 
conviction that God, in blinding his bodily eyes, had meant to 
enlarge and clear his inner vision, and make him one of the 
world’s truest seers and prophets. The present sonnet is one 
of the first of these confidences of Milton on the subject of his 
blindness” (Masson). 

2. Ere half my days : It is probable that his blindness 
became total in 1652, when Milton was forty-four years old. 
He evidently means half his working or productive days; his 
greatest literary projects were still before him. 

3. One talent: Cf. Matthew, xxv, 14-30. 

8. Fondly: Foolishly, as in Lycidas, 56. 

12. Thousands : That is, of angelic beings. Cf. Spenser’s 
Ifymn of Heavenly Love, 63-69. 


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